


August, Do Your Worst

by Kicker



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4, World of Warcraft
Genre: Alcohol, August fic challenge, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Multi, Non-Binary Chara, One Shot Collection, Smut, Swearing, Vault 831
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-11 21:37:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 31
Words: 22,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11723061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kicker/pseuds/Kicker
Summary: Series of minifics and drabbles for the August Fic Challenge - 31 fics in 31 days.Wide variety of characters and subject matters so check chapter titles and notes to find what you're looking for.





	1. Shameless Fluff - Paladin Danse/Male Sole Survivor (Nate McKay)

**Author's Note:**

> This is the prompt list: [August fic challenge](http://kickerwrites.tumblr.com/post/162859595465/joufancyhuh-yourlocalpriestess-and-i-have-come).
> 
> I started the month intending to focus on Fallout 4 but as the month has gone on, I've ended up dipping into different fandoms because why not. Hi to anyone from not-Fallout who sees this! You don't know me yet but maybe you will, one day.
> 
>  ~~I haven't tagged with individual characters yet because I don't want to spam the tags. I'll go back at the end.~~ done now, I think. might have missed a couple though but eh.
> 
> These were originally posted on my tumblr, under this tag: [august fic challenge](http://kickerwrites.tumblr.com/tagged/august-fic-challenge)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 1 - Shameless Fluff  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Paladin Danse/male Sole Survivor (Nate McKay)  
> Content advisory: fluff.

In retrospect, a history of pre-war aviation was not the best choice of reading material. After a long day of working in the sun and a larger-than-usual evening meal to compensate for it, the words swim on the page as if unwilling to tell him the story of the first fusion-powered aircrafts.

Danse shakes his head, rubs his eyes, and glares at the book. No sooner do the words obediently settle into lines and begin to give up their secrets, than the door swings open and crashes against the wall. He looks up sharply; but his annoyance at the interruption is immediately dissipated by a bright and somewhat apologetic smile.

Nate closes the door with exaggerated care, then crosses the floor and drops down onto the couch beside him. He leans back his head and lets out a low groan. “I’m exhausted,” he says, “but it’s almost working. Almost.”

Danse smiles. “Good work, sol… uh.”

 _Soldier_.

The habitual appellation is hard to shake, even now. But if Nate has noticed his near-slip, he doesn’t respond to it. He remains still for a moment, staring at the ceiling, then lets out a deep sigh and leans sideways to rest his head on Danse’s shoulder.

“I might see if I can bribe Sturges to come down here,” he continues. “Rub his magic hands over it.”

“Does he know anything about vertibirds?” asks Danse.

“No,” says Nate. “Or at least, I doubt it. But neither do I and I’ve got this far. Well. We. Of course. And Ronnie’s still out there.”

The pressure on Danse’s shoulder is released as Nate lifts his head. “She said she was going to clear up but… she looked about ready to kick the shit out of it, actually. Maybe I should go back out.”

Danse touches his hand to Nate’s shoulder in what he hopes is a comforting gesture. “I’m sure she’ll act responsibly.”

Nate sighs. “I’m sure you’re right. What are you up to, anyway?”

“I  _was_  reading,” says Danse.

“Oh,” says Nate. “Well, don’t let me stop you.”

Of course, it’s only a moment later that the usual battle begins and Danse finds himself shifting sideways on the couch to accommodate Nate’s sprawl. Nate lies back against him, grabbing Danse’s arm and pulling it across his chest, curling his fingers around his elbow to hold it close.

There’s a silence, then, at least until Nate’s breaths inevitably deepen into soft snores. Danse lifts his book with his free hand but the words dance around even more than they had before. He can’t reach anything to use as a bookmark but he can’t bring himself to disturb Nate, either, so he drops the book quietly on the floor. He can probably stand to read the whole chapter again anyway.

Under his arm Nate’s chest is warm, rising and falling with every breath and so gently he can almost feel the heartbeat under it. He brings his other arm across it, and rests his cheek against the side of his head.

“Are you messing with my hair,” mumbles Nate.

“Not intentionally,” says Danse.

“Oh,” says Nate, yawning. “That’s a shame.”

Danse musses his fingers through Nate’s hair, enjoying the sounds of dissatisfaction he makes before hushing him and pressing a kiss behind his ear.

“Is that better?” he asks.

“Yes,” says Nate, with a sigh. “Yes, it is.”


	2. Rare Pair - Curie/Robert Joseph MacCready

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 2 - Rare Pair  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Curie/Robert Joseph MacCready  
> Content advisory: fluff. cheap French jokes. light seduction.

“Hey, Curie,” says MacCready.

Curie puts down her book. “Robert!” she says. “I did not know you were back. It is so nice to see you.”

He lets out a quiet laugh and scratches the side of his neck, just under his ear. “Yeah, uh. Thanks.”

She has been observing for some time how he reacts when she says his name just so. For a while she had tried to pronounce it correctly, or at least as the others do. But she would always slip, pronounce it incorrectly, and rush to apologize. But he would not be angry; instead his eyes would soften and the corners of his mouth would lift into a smile for that fraction of a second before he covered it up with laughter and nervousness.

Curie has decided she prefers it when he smiles.

“ _Robert_ ,” she says. “Come in! Tell me, how was your journey?”

“Um, yeah,” he says, rubbing his neck and taking a few steps closer. “It was good, we got a lot done. Did a lot of walking. Collected a lot of junk.”

“More typewriters?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says. “More da… typewriters. Anyway, we came across a few boxes of these and I thought… well I know you…. you like them, so, here.”

And onto the table he drops the four boxes of Fancy Lads Snack Cakes that Curie has been trying to ignore for the past few minutes.

“Oh!” she says. “How kind of you. That is very thoughtful.  _Robert_.”

He laughs again, nervously, but this time he seems to catch his hand before it touches his neck, lowering it to hang awkwardly down by his side.

She opens up the topmost packet, plucks out a cake, and pops it into her mouth. The sugar dissolves on her tongue and spreads through her mouth, lingering there even after she has swallowed it. She closes her eyes and lets out a gentle sigh. “Oh,  _Robert_ ,” she says. “With these Fancy Lads you are really spoiling me.”

“Oh,” he says, his voice sounding a little strained. “It’s nothing. Really. I just saw them and…”

“ _Robert_ ,” she interrupts, wiping an imagined trace of sugar from her lip with the side of her thumb. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

His eyes become so wide they reflect the light from the high, narrow windows and appear far more blue even than usual, just like the sky. His mouth opens and closes, once, twice, in a way that the books she has been reading would perhaps describe as ‘like a fish’.

“I would not mind if you were to do so,” she continues. “To try, that is.”

“I, uh, haha. Curie? What?”

“You see, I have read many books about these things. It seems to me that many of the issues faced by the characters are caused by miscommunication, or unclear intentions. This could so easily be resolved by simply stating things plainly from the start.”

He stares, now, open-mouthed, his hand resting on the side of his neck, his head tilting a little to the side. “Huh,” he says.

“Of course,” she says. “I will not be offended if you do not wish to. I am merely making my… receptiveness to such an approach known.”

“That’s not…” he starts.

“I’m not…” he corrects.

“Curie,” he says, rubbing his hand over his entire mouth this time. “That’s books. That’s not… how it’s supposed to be.”

“I know!” she says, brightly. “That is why I said something. These characters spend so long fretting about what the other thinks when they could just say it and get to the interesting part earlier.”

He frowns a little. “What interesting part.”

She smiles widely.

“Oh,” he says, his eyebrows rising and a hint of color coming to his cheeks. “Oh. Well… let’s… uh. Let’s just. Take this one step at a time, right?”


	3. Family - Kid Shaun & Female Sole Survivor (Corinna May)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 3 - Family  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Kid Shaun & Female Sole Survivor (Corinna May)  
> Content advisory: mom stuff

Shaun stands on an outcrop of rock just outside the borders of the settlement. He’s staring out at the desolate view, over the barren sands that lead out toward the just-as-barren sea. The sky is gray but after several days of dank, drizzle-filled mist that had blanketed the coast and kept them huddled inside, he’d been desperate to get out. So, Corinna had let him.

As she approaches, he looks over his shoulder and a wide, bright smile spreads across his face.

“Hey mom!” he says.

“Hey kiddo,” she says, patting the back of his shoulder. “What are you up to?”

“Nothing,” he says, sniffing and wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “I was just looking. What is that? Those buildings over there? Do you know?”

“I don’t remember exactly,” she says. “It’s just a factory, I think.”

“Is it on your map? Can I look it up?”

She smiles. “Sure you can.”

She looks around for a flat-ish spot on the rocks and sits down, her legs stretched out in front of her. Shaun drops down beside her, crashing down onto his knees with a carelessness she’s sure she used to be guilty of herself.

“Careful,” she says. “You don’t want to get holes in your jeans.”

“Why not?” he says. “You have.”

She looks down at her legs. Just above the right knee, sure enough, the fabric of her pants has worn through. The green of the fabric has paled, and grubby white threads have begun to lose their grip on each other and frayed apart to reveal a tiny patch of the skin below it.

“Huh,” she says, “I thought my armor had been rubbing more than usual. Alright, you got me on that one. Still. Be careful.”

“I will, mom.”

She turns on the Pip-Boy’s screen and rests her wrist on her knee so he can reach it. He leans against her arm and rests his head on her shoulder, flipping slowly through the screens to get to the map.

“We are here,” she says, when the screen has settled. “See? That little pointer shows which way we’re facing.”

“I know that, mom.”

His tone of voice is so exasperated,  _god, mom, I know, of course I know that_ , that it’s almost like listening to herself. She can’t hold back a laugh at the absurdity of it.

“What?” he asks, turning a curious pair of eyes up at her.

“Nothing,” she says. “Go on.”

He’s used the device enough now (most of the time with her permission) that he’s almost as quick at using it as she is. So before she really realizes what he’s doing, he’s found the place of interest and flipped to her notes, and is running his finger over the screen as he sounds out the words under his breath.

Then he stops, and laughs, and presses his hand over his mouth.

“What is it?”

“Mom,” he says. “You called them assholes. ‘Raider assholes’.”

She closes her eyes. Danse’s insistence on writing up location notes and 'incident reports’ immediately after said incidents meant she was often still angry about them, and thus more likely to use… more colorful language.

_I’ll edit it later,_  she’d say, if he ever read it over her shoulder and expressed disapproval.

Of course, she never did.

“Well,” she says, slowly. “They were.”

“But you told me not to call people assholes.”

“I did,” she replies. “Listen. When you’re old enough to go out there and fight them yourself? Then you can call them whatever you like. Until then? You keep it to yourself. You feel me?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I do.”

She takes back her hand and turns off the device before he gets to the end of the entry. She doesn’t remember exactly what she wrote, but she does remember exactly how angry she was. He really doesn’t need to see that.

“Alright,” she says. “Let’s get inside before it starts raining again.”


	4. Something You Don't Ship - Glory/Desdemona

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 4 - Something You Don’t Ship  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Glory/Desdemona  
> Content advisory: hurt/comfort, sort of. maybe fluff? idk.

“I could kill you right now.”

Desdemona leans back, and lets out a sigh that she hopes doesn’t sound as irritable as she feels. “Glory,” she says, “I’m trying to help.”

“Yeah well,” replies Glory, her upper lip turned up into something fairly close to a snarl. “You think you could, I dunno, cut back on the agonizing pain as you do it? Just a little?”

“I’m not  _trying_ to hurt you,” says Desdemona, leaning back in and continuing to unlace her boot. “Just… be quiet for a minute.”

“Make me.”

“As if could make you do anything you didn’t want to do.”

Glory laughs. “I suppose that’s fair. But maybe you could… gently encourage me?”

Desdemona looks up. Glory’s still sat up on her bunk, leaning back on straight and locked arms. Dark circles under her eyes and a few more lines around them betray her last few nights of poor sleep and apparently constant pain. But one side of her mouth turns up into a smile, and she shifts her weight onto one arm to point a finger at her lips, still dark-painted despite her supposed convalescence.

So Desdemona lets out another sigh, this time to indicate a reluctance that she certainly doesn’t feel. She leans over and meets Glory in a soft kiss, one that’s rewarded by the low, throaty chuckle that never fails to bring a smile to her own lips.

“Will you be quiet now?” she asks.

“Yeah,” says Glory, with a smile. “For now.”

She returns to her task, loosening Glory’s boot and trying to pull it off her foot without causing more pain.

“Ow, fffuck! Jesus, Dez, what are you trying to do to me?”

“That quiet lasted a long time,” she says wryly, as she drops the boot to the floor and inspects the damage. The ankle is swollen, more than it had been even the day before. The bruises are still dark purple, but maybe they’re fading? She can’t even tell.

“Carrington told you to keep your weight off it,” she continues.

Glory snorts. “Of course he did. That candy-ass is used to keeping his weight off his feet. I got bored. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same.”

Desdemona casts a stern look at her. “ _I_  told you not to go out in the first place.”

“As if you can stop me from doing anything I want to do.”

Desdemona doesn’t even try to hide the weariness from entering her expression. “I know,” she says. “I know. But… why didn’t you wait?”

“You know why,” she replies. “It needed to be done. We knew where it was, we knew how much time we had. In, out, done. And I did it. Didn’t I?”

_Yes,_  thinks Desdemona.  _At the cost of several broken bones and another chunk of my sanity._

“You should have waited for backup,” she says, out loud this time.

“I am damned if I’m waiting around letting anyone stew in fear for their lives. Especially not with the Brotherhood still sniffing around.”

Desdemona is about to reply when a hand drops onto her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” says Glory. “But I’m never gonna stop. You know that.”

“I know,” says Desdemona, resting her hand on Glory’s and flashing her a quick smile. “And I’m going to be here for you as long as you need me. You know that. Right?”

Glory smiles, slowly. “I do.”

Then there’s a moment of exchanged glances, of fingers loosely entwined, of not wanting to leave but knowing she should let her rest.

“Can you stay?” asks Glory, as if reading her mind. “Just for a little while? Maybe not the whole night but. You know.”

“I don’t want to risk…”

“I know, I know, you don’t want to be here if you can’t spend the night kicking me in the shins like you usually do. But damn, didn’t Carrington prescribe some TLC? C'mon.”

Desdemona shakes her head, but mentally she’s already beginning to kick off her shoes. “You’re impossible,” she says.

“Well,” says Glory, with a knowing smile. “That makes two of us.”


	5. Friends - Original characters (Vic the Trader and a rando)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 5 - Friends  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: couple of randos.  
> Content advisory: ? eh.

“Spare me some of that?”

Vic looks up from the paper to see a woman stood in the doorway. The light’s shining from behind her so there’s not much to help identify her. Her meaning is unclear, too, until she steps forward and holds up a cup dangling from her finger.

She’d been perfectly polite outside, and didn’t seem the sort to launch into a murderous rampage for being refused a drink. At least one that couldn’t be defused by a quick disarming manoeuvre and a chokehold. Still. Vic stares for a moment, before deciding there’s no harm in sharing and carefully nudging the bottle of vodka across the table toward her.

She crosses the room and picks the bottle up with a quick smile of gratitude, pouring out a shot or two into her cup; a healthy amount, but not a greedy one. She drops the bottle back on the table, then drags out a chair and sits herself down.

“You don’t talk much,” she says, taking a sip. Over the rim of the cup, her eyes are bright and curious.

“Nope.”

Vic pulls back the bottle, pouring out another shot before testing the lid and tucking it back into Minos’ pack for later. Generosity’s one thing; carelessness another. That she even thought to come in here is a red flag to begin with. Can’t be too untrusting in the Commonwealth.

She leans back, crossing her feet under the table and resting the cup on her lap. She taps one fingernail against the enamel, the repetitive sound almost making Vic’s eye twitch with irritation. “You just don’t like people then,” she says.

“People are fine,” says Vic. “Just… not all at the same time.”

She smirks into her cup, her next words echoing oddly out of it. “Don’t seem to like them individually, either.”

“I’m not here to make friends. What do you want?”

The words come out more sharply than Vic intends, almost enough to engender a feeling of regret.

Almost.

“Sorry,” she says. “I mean to say, I understand. Truth be told, I just needed to get away from the crowd. Too many people, too much noise, always yap-yapping over each other. Like a pack of dogs, except dogs have more manners. Speaking of which…”

She leans down, then, looks under the table. “Your, uh, dog not in here?”

“Nah,” says Vic. “When we get into a settlement Cerberus does what she wants. Dog stuff. I try not to ask.”

She sits back up, and looks at him with a frown. “Cerberus?” she asks. “The… hell-dog?”

“Yeah,” says Vic. “Except Hades. Technically. She’s only got the one head, but she certainly eats like she’s got three of them.”

“Wow,” she says. “So you’re well-read, then.”

“That’s my trade,” Vic replies. “Well, except for the usual medical supplies and ammo and shit. Books. I’ve got fiction, non-fiction… plus a few textbooks and travel books if you just need some firelighters.”

She looks down into her cup, her eyebrows raising in an expression that could be interest or disinterest, it’s hard to tell in the bad lighting.

“And,” continues Vic, slowly, guessing that maybe she’s heard this already and that’s why she’s in here. “Some, uh, more colorful literature.”

“Colorful?” she asks, curiously.

Vic grins. “Yeah.”

She puts her cup down on the table. “You’re not talking picture books, are you.”

Vic grins a little more. “Some of them. I haven’t been down to Goodneighbor for a while so the stock’s a little low. But, you know. I’ve got a few pieces left, if you need something to help you… sleep at night.”

“Huh,” she says.

“Yeah,” says Vic.

“Wow,” she says. “I’m short on caps but…”

Vic leans back, arms folded. “No deal.”

She rolls her eyes. “C'mon, let me finish my sentence. I don’t have caps but I do have a load of ammo for a gun I don’t use any more and an entire carton of cigarettes.”

“Well,” says Vic, reaching down and pulling the bottle of vodka back out of the pack. “When you put it that way… Why don’t you bring them over, and I’ll see what I can do for you.”


	6. A fandom you love but never write for - Skyrim, Jenassa/Female Dragonborn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 6 - A fandom you love but never write for  
> Fandom: Skyrim  
> Relationship/characters: Jenassa/Female Dragonborn (dragonborn!Corinna)  
> Content advisory: written by someone who has played a thousand hours of Skyrim but never written anything for it or researched how that’s Supposed To Be Done. apologies in advance to any lore fiends. ;)

Jenassa sniffs cautiously at the air. Sulphur. And something else; something sweet, cloying, almost floral. Were it not for the chill of the fading day she could imagine herself passing a bathhouse - but, this is Skyrim, after all. They do not have such services, not even in the largest of towns. Perhaps they believe that dirt provides added protection against the cold. It would not be the strangest idea she has encountered during her time in the north.

She looks down at the ground underneath her boots. As she moves her foot, the dent it leaves behind fills with water, from which tendrils of steam begin to twist upward. She curls her lip in disgust and looks to Corinna, expecting to find a similar expression on her face.

Instead, a rare smile has crossed her companion’s lips.

“Oh,” says Jenassa. “This is the place? Really?”

“It sure is,” says Corinna.

Jenassa surveys the area. It’s open. Very open. Nowhere for a potential assailant to hide, so to speak, but… nowhere to take cover, either. Pools of steaming water lie in crevices between the rocks, some shallow, some deep, all brightly coloured with mineral residues and who knows what else.

Corinna moves gracefully between the pools to a higher piece of ground, a flat rock which she checks for damp before dropping her pack onto it.

“We’ve been on the road for a long time,” she says, raising her voice to be heard over the bubbling of a nearby steam vent. “We can set camp away from the water, but I just thought it might be nice to have a bit of a soak. You know. Warm up a little.”

Light streams down from the sky above, a peculiar shade of pink and orange that glows warmly on Corinna’s skin.

“Warm up?” scoffs Jenassa. “I didn’t realise you were so affected by the cold.”

“I’m not,” says Corinna. “And you know exactly what I mean.”

It’s true; she does. Jenassa has woken up sweating beneath Corinna’s thrown-off blankets enough times by now. And had she not grasped the underlying meaning of Corinna’s statement, the sly wink she gives as she turns away and deftly begins to shed her armor would be a fairly comprehensive clue.

Jenassa steps up onto the rock herself, casting another glance around the area. Two small tents have been raised some distance away. The light of a small campfire is just beginning to rise up into the gathering dusk, and a number of smaller lights indicate candles or the like. The floral smell, she realises, is from the ground itself, at least from the Jazbay that cling to the rocks as tight as scaled lichen. Every movement she makes sends up a new waft of fragrance, enough to overpower the sulphurous fumes, but not so much as to make her eyes sting like the unnecessarily harsh pollen of the rest of Skyrim’s flora.

It’s… well. She would hesitate to say romantic, of course. But it certainly is some way toward pleasant. And perhaps it would be nice to… warm up a little. So she drops her own pack, and begins to unbuckle her armor. By the time it is shed and folded neatly beside Corinna’s more haphazard pile of belongings, Corinna is mostly submerged in the closest pool.

A cold breeze drifts by, bending and twisting the rising plumes of condensing steam, and prickling Jenassa’s skin with goosebumps. She hesitates; as the shadows gather, the exposed nature of the location heightens her sense of unease. The proximity of the other hunters, as relaxed and apathetic as they are, does little to allay her fears.

But a laugh and a splash draws her attention back to her companion. Corinna rises from the pool, water glittering on her skin, beading and cascading down like handfuls of precious gems.

“So,” she says, with a gentle tilt to her head. “Are you coming in, or am I going to have to drag you?”

“I come of my own accord,” says Jenassa, archly, pressing her lips together to hide her smile. “Surely you know that by now.”

Corinna laughs, her eyes bright, and holds out her hand for Jenassa to take. “I do,” she says. “I do.”


	7. The Bad Thing Nobody Talks About - Cait, Male Sole Survivor (Nate McKay)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 7 - The Bad Thing Nobody Talks About  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Cait & Male Sole Survivor (Nate McKay). still not quite / yet.  
> Content advisory: menstruation. periods. That Time Of The Month. more euphemisms for the same. bad fucking language. and a mild hint at chems.

In the courtyard of the Castle, the squad are milling around and waiting for their morning training session. Nate checks the time. It’s quarter to nine, and Cait should be out here by now. In fact, she’s usually here by half past, grumbling at anyone she sees but making sure all the equipment is laid out and ready. But today? She’s nowhere to be seen.

So even though there’s time to spare, Nate goes on the hunt. He pops his head in through the door of the store room, the armory, even of the bar, but she’s nowhere to be found. So as a last resort he heads back to the room she calls her own, barely more than a couple of pallets leaned up against each other with just a bare bunk and a re-purposed office desk for storing her few possessions.

_No,_  she’d said.  _It ain’t much. But it’s mine._

He knocks on the wall. There’s a muffled voice from behind it, but whether it says ‘come in’ or ‘fuck off’ he can’t quite tell. It is Cait, after all. So he cautiously pushes aside the makeshift curtain-door, and finds her sitting on the edge of her bunk staring down at her knees, fingers gripping the edge of the mattress.

“Cait?” he asks. “Are you alright?”

“Fuckin’ marvellous,” she says, the tone of her voice indicating the exact opposite.

“Okay,” he says. “Uh. The squad’s waiting, so shall I tell them you’ll be out in a minute?”

“You can tell them to get fucked,” she replies.

Nate nods, thoughtfully. “Can do,” he says. “Any particular reason?”

“I’m on the rag,” she says, bitterly.

“Okay,” says Nate.

“Aunt Flo’s in town,” she explains, wincing.

“Alright,” says Nate.

And then, though he expects another euphemism, Cait just groans and leans forward.

“It’s… shark week?” he suggests, helpfully.

Cait glares up at him, revealing tired eyes in an unusually pale face. “What?”

“There’s blood in the water,” says Nate. “But… I guess you wouldn’t have heard that one.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” snaps Cait. “What’s a fuckin’ shark? This is no time to be messin’ with me, Nate. God damnit.”

“Sorry,” he says. “Can I…”

“No,” she says, rising to her feet and crossing the room, dragging open a drawer of her desk and staring into it. “Just… leave me alone. I’ll be fine in a minute, I just…”

“It’s okay,” he says. “I can get Danse to deal with the training now, and I’ll get you something to help.”

“Fuck off,” she says, leaning on the desk, shaking her head. “You don’t know what’ll help. You don’t understand. And I’ll be fine. Just give me a minute.”

“Cait,” he says, trying to catch her eye. She’s too busy staring blankly into that drawer so he reaches out and tries to touch her shoulder in a comforting gesture. She slaps his hand away with a curse and glares at him. But, at least she’s looking at him, which is a start.

“Cait,” he repeats, softly. “I was married. I had a sister, and a mother, and a best friend who was  _not_  shy about this stuff. I get it. I don’t  _get it_  get it, of course, but I get it. Tell me what you need. I want to help.”

She stares at him for a moment, wide-eyed. “I need,” she says, slowly. “I need to sit down.”

“Okay.”

“And I need… no. I don’t need that,” she says, shaking her head, scrubbing a hand over her eyes and letting out another curse, this one more plaintive than the last. “I don’t want to do that.”

Nate nods. “Alright. We’ll start with water, sugar, and a distraction. You sit down, I’ll go fetch them. Then when I get back, I’ll rub your feet or something. Ruby used to like that.”

Cait stops halfway across the room, her head snapping around to glare at him again. “You can keep the fuck away from me feet.”

Nate looks down at the ground and laughs. When he looks back up, Cait’s expression is still fierce but tempered with something that might be relief. “Message received, loud and clear,” he says. “Don’t worry, Cait. I’ve got your back. And… not your feet. Sit down. I’ll be back in a few.”


	8. A Long Lost OTP - Doctor Luka Kovač/My Teenaged Self’s Shamelessly Idealised Self-Insert OC

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 8 - a Long Lost OTP  
> Fandom: *cough* ER  
> Relationship/characters: Doctor Luka Kovač/My Teenaged Self’s Shamelessly Idealised Self-Insert OC  
> Content advisory: the relationship should be warning enough XD

The cab drew to a halt, its door swinging open almost immediately. First an elegant ankle, then a charming knee, and finally the rest of the sleekly-dressed woman named Felicity Eunice Fitzroy-Fox (PhD) emerged onto the sidewalk. She shut the door of the cab behind her, looked up at the sign of the building at which she had just arrived, and smiled.

County General Hospital, Chigago, Illinois.

As a genius with a silver tongue and distractingly lovely hair, she was able to navigate her way into the inner sanctum of the hospital without a single person doubting her right to be there. Her high heels tapped neatly on the linoleum as she sashayed gracefully between gurneys and crash carts, a vision of calm and serenity in amongst the general mayhem of a busy Chicago emergency room.

Trailing red-painted fingernails across the name on each door she passed, she eventually came to the one she was looking for. Ensuring that she was not observed, she entered the room and quietly closed the door behind her. She quickly crossed the room, kicking off her shoes and draping herself on a bed, arranging her lovely hair in such a fashion to appear both artfully dishevelled and extremely alluring. From her pocket she pulled a single red rose, the stem of which she caught between her teeth.

Like this, she waited. But not for long. Soon, the door swung open, and there he was.

Doctor Luka Kovač.

His dark, dreamy eyes raked over her.

“Who are you?” he said. “What are you doing in here?”

She pulled the rose from her teeth and flashed a brilliant smile, before adopting a look sad enough to arouse concern but not so much as to cause her brow to wrinkle unattractively.

“I’m sick, Dr Kovač,” she said, morosely.

“Is that so,” he said, a dubious tone entering his wonderfully accented voice. “Did you speak to reception? You shouldn’t be in…”

“I’m sick,” she repeated, firmly. “Heartsick. And the only thing that can fix me is something I can fit into a 500-700 word PwP.”

He frowned again, his dark eyebrows and deep-set intelligent eyes lending a certain gravitas to the expression. A slight tilt of his head allowed the light from the corridor to glint in the light touches of gray hair at his temples. “I… beg your pardon? P W… what?”

She blushed, attractively. “Patient confidentiality, Dr Kovač. I couldn’t possibly say it out loud, not with the door open. Please, close it. It’s so very bright out there and my eyes…”

She lifted her hand and held it limply over her eyes, her fingers splayed just enough so she could continue to watch him between them. He closed the door, muscles probably rippling under his coat, and took those precious few steps to stand by her side.

Close up, she could smell the sharp tang of his cologne. Combined with the manly physicality of his presence, it was most stimulating. And then, as he looked down at her, his jaw did The Thing. You know the one.

“Oh,” she said, faintly. “Suddenly I do feel rather weak.”

Her eyes fluttered closed, her long and elegant eyelashes came to lie elegantly against her cheek. She assumed so, anyhow, as she had neglected to arrange a nearby mirror so that she could check.

“I’m calling security,” he said.

“No!” she said, reaching out, gently clutching his collar. “Please. You don’t know how sick I am!”

“I have an idea,” he replied.

“Please!” she said. “Let me just pitch this idea to you. It’ll be very tasteful, and I swear I’ll cut back on the purple prose.”

He said nothing, smouldering at her intensely until the credits began to roll.

_Next time on ER…_


	9. An Argument - Curie & Nick Valentine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 9 - an argument  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Curie & Nick Valentine  
> Content advisory: excessive noir narrative, I can’t help myself when I get onto a Valentine kick

Valentine leans back in his chair. With an idle hand he extracts a single dusty cigarette from a battered old pack, lifting it to his lips and leaving it to hang there while she directs a few more choice phrases in his direction. When she turns away he pats down his pockets for something with which to light it, a fruitless search in the end seeing as he’d left his last good lighter on the file cabinet earlier and had been loath to interrupt the conversational flow just to pick it up.

He slides the cigarette back into the packet and ponders lifting his feet up onto the corner of the desk, but she’s irate enough already and that kind of casual disregard for standards of cleanliness might just push her over the edge. So he folds his feet under the table instead, leaning back and slumping down far enough in his seat that he’s not sure if the warning creak comes from the chair or his own rusting joints.

She’s real worked up, that’s for sure, pacing back and forth on the opposite side of the desk like a chem addict waiting to get into Goodneighbor. Ordinarily she’d be talking with her hands, shaping words with her fingers like she’s casting spells to bring the right words to her lips. But her hands are down at her sides with those delicate fingers curled, tightening into a pair of hard little fists every minute or so when the anger surges. But her voice is faltering, the rapidity of her speech beginning to fade until she falls silent altogether.

She stops right in the middle of the floor and casts an accusing glance over at him. It’s quite the sight. With her faultless elfin face and slender build she might seem naive, innocent even, and her voice doesn’t much help her in that regard. Her soft tones and that smooth French accent of hers have a tendency to take the sharp out of her words and make lesser beings doubt the smarts behind it.

More fool the man who does.

“You are not listening to me,” she says.

“I am,” he says. “But you’re losing me. Why don’t you pull it back a few paces, tell me what you’re really angry about.”

Curie lifts her eyes to where the stars would be if the smoke-stained and poorly painted ceiling of his office weren’t in the way of it.

“I hate,” she says with a renewed glare, “all these… these god damned typewriters.”

Valentine smiles a wry smile. “It’s not about the typewriters, though. Is it?”

Curie folds her arms. “Yes it is.”

Valentine sits up, leans forward over his desk. “It’s that no matter how many times you object, you still end up lugging them around.”

She doesn’t reply to that.

“So really what we’re talking about is that you’re not feeling heard,” he says. “Respected.”

She blinks a few times and that looked like a nod, albeit an almost imperceptible one.

“Curie,” he says. “I don’t know what to tell you except we’ve all been through it. Man needs to get himself a pack brahmin, but until then he’s going to use whatever he can, whoever he can. I know you want to help him because he helped you, but there comes a point when you’ve got to put your foot down. Tell him to carry it his damn self. Don’t even go out there with him. You’ve got your own work to do now, and he’s got more than enough caps to hire someone who doesn’t.”

“But he says he wants to spend time with me,” she says, “Must I mistrust him? After all he has done for me?”

Valentine rises and heads for the file cabinet to pick up that lighter. He glances at the pile of holotapes Ellie keeps telling him to deal with but it never seems to be the right time. Now isn’t it either so he pulls a piece of scrap paper over them and turns back to his companion. 

“Sometimes,” he says, finally getting to light his cigarette, “people don’t say what they mean. They say what will get them what they want. Sometimes… well, sometimes they do things for the same reason. I know you feel a kind of loyalty to him, we all do. But you can’t keep giving in the hopes he’ll give it back.”


	10. An AU - Corinna May/Wade Russell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 10 - an AU  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Corinna May/Wade Russell (who belongs to the ever-wonderful @deichqueen)  
> Content advisory: timeline fuckery. this literally cannot happen but I literally do not care. :D

Since crawling out of the Vault, terrified and alone, Corinna May has tried not to get to know anyone. It’s not worth it. Too many times she’s arrived back at one of the Minutemen’s new settlements only to see the signs of an attack, watched harrowed faces working on smoke-stained turrets, heard the sound of hammers echoing up into the sky.

After a while, you learn not to ask about the person you were talking to last time you were in town. You count the fresh mounds of earth outside the walls and hope they just… moved on.

Not long after that, you stop talking to anyone at all.

Despite her best intentions, though, there’s one face that just keeps coming back. Like a bad penny except… well. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Wade Russell.

She’d met him in Diamond City, first. For a brief moment he was just another asshole staring at her from across the bar, looking for a mark or a lay. Then came the first realization; I  _know_  you. And then the second; I know you from  _before_.

They hadn’t become friends, exactly, they had their own paths to tread. He’d set himself up as a merc and seemed to be doing pretty well. She was just trying to survive and too stubborn to admit how hard she was finding it. But that stubbornness and the anger she felt toward a world that had taken everything from her seemed to be doing a pretty good job of keeping her alive.

They’d parted ways, met again, walked from Diamond City to Starlight together before parting once more. They’d made no plans to meet again; that’s just not what you do.

Now here he is anyway, in Bunker Hill.

This time he’s the one slumped over the bar, shoulders rounded, not seeming to know or care about anything going on around him. His pack’s on the seat next to him, a clear signal to any new arrival to keep their distance.

So Corinna leans casually against the bar. Close, but… not too close.

“Scotch,” she says, when Savoldi finally pays her some attention. “One for me, and one for that guy over there.”

When the shot is delivered Russell looks up, sharp blue eyes heading straight for her hip before scanning back up to her face. Then he leans back… no. He unfolds, his back straightening, his shoulders broadening, and though there’s no real change in his expression she gets the sense that he’s not exactly displeased to see her.

“We must stop meeting like this,” he says.

She smiles and looks away, lifting the chipped glass to her lips and inhaling the sugar-sweet but still smoky vapors of a whisky aged far longer than its creators had ever intended. “You should stop frequenting such seedy bars, then. That’d cut the odds.”

He lets out a low, appreciative laugh. “Where’s the fun in that?”

She shrugs, one-shouldered. “True. I guess you gotta take your pleasures where you can, in a world like this. Right?”

When she glances back over, his blue eyes flick back up to meet hers again.

“Right,” he says.

She looks down at the seat beside him, a silent gesture that has him reaching out to pull the pack from it and brushing a trace of imagined dust from its cushion. She sits down, sliding her glass along the bar as she moves. By the time she’s settled he’s already pulled out a packet of cigarettes and is offering her one.

It might not last beyond the evening, and it certainly wouldn’t do to imagine anything more than that.

But she might as well make the most of it while she can.


	11. Smut - Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 11 - Smut  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor   
> Content advisory: nsfw for sexual content. also for incomplete narrative because realistically this should be part of an 8k fic but I don’t have time for that right now.

She returns with a bottle of Nuka-Cola, circling the table to pour half of it into his glass then pausing to take a sip herself. She stays there in front of him for a moment, distracted by a thought, lifting her Pip-Boy and idly flicking through its screens.

Danse reaches out, gently touches his fingertips to her thigh and then, emboldened, follows it with a full-handed stroke that ends somewhere close to her knee.

She looks up from the device, her finger still paused over the dial, her eyebrow arching.

“Well, hello,” she says.

With a firmer touch he gently turns her toward him, drawing her closer until her toes are just touching his and he has to crane his neck to look up at her face. A bare electric bulb shines down from behind her head, hardly bright but still forming a glaring halo that stings his eyes and stops him being able to really see her.

“Come here,” he says, but it doesn’t sound like his voice and when she doesn’t move he begins to wonder if he’d even said it at all.

Slowly, deliberately, she takes another sip of the drink then turns away to put down the bottle beside his own untouched glass. Then she turns back and bends down toward him, her face close to his, resting her hands on the back of the couch either side of his head. Her lips curve up into a smile and the couch creaks a gentle protest as she settles herself down, her thighs pressed against his, her weight just coming to rest on his knees.

She sits there for a moment, her eyes fixed on his, dark and sweet as syrup.

“Well,” she says. “Here I am. What now?”

His heart is hammering in his throat but somehow he finds a voice.

“Kiss me,” he says.

She leans in close and touches her lips to his, but that’s all it is; a touch. She’s there and she’s gone; except… she’s not. Of course she’s not. Instead she’s resting a single finger on his lips, and brushing the tip of her nose against his.

“Don’t order me around,” she murmurs. “You know I don’t like that.”

That’s not how he intended it to come across but he can’t speak to protest his innocence, he’s too intoxicated by her presence; he always is. The warmth of her skin, the sweetness of her lips, the scent of smoke that lingers from the cigarette she’d gone out to smoke earlier. It all combines into a set of sensations that render him speechless at every turn.

She does kiss him now, on her own terms, a long and deep series of kisses that are accompanied by her fingers beginning to stroke around his ears, down his neck, scratching up through the hair on the back of his head. In response he strokes his hand up her thigh, up under her dress, full of silent reverence for the soft, warm skin he finds there.

He tries to bring her closer again, no orders this time, just a  _want_ , a  _need_. But she leans back, away, removing the Pip-Boy and tossing it aside like it’s not the most valuable piece of equipment in the entire Castle. He can’t worry about it for long; she begins to unbutton his shirt, slowly, achingly so. Her fingertips just brush the skin of his chest as she moves from one button to the next, then when she’s done she parts the fabric and trails a hand down the center of his chest.

At the prompt of a single beckoning finger he sits up and forward to let her strip the shirt from him. At her softly murmured instruction, he reaches behind her back to unzip her dress and pull it up and over her head.

* * *

_Next time, on ER_

…

wait

wrong prompt

**awkward**


	12. Major Character Death - Female Sole Survivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 12 - Major Character Death  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: female sole survivor  
> Content advisory: death, insects, some graphic ‘ew’ factor, poorly-researched morphology

It’s a cold morning in late October. At a crossroads just north of Concord, where the road splits to head up past the Red Rocket and up to Sanctuary, a wild brahmin has succumbed to hunger or sickness or attack. Two stingwings feed on the fetid remains, oozing their poisonous ichor onto its flesh to dissolve it into the nutritious sludge that keeps them alive.

From the north-west, a figure appears. It is a woman, clad in blue and yellow. She creeps down the embankment toward the road, her shaking hands clasped around a 10mm pistol, gingerly stepping forward as if she were afraid of the ground itself.

Disturbed by the sound of her approach the insects detach themselves from the brahmin, rising into the air with a loud and harsh buzzing of wings, swaying in mid-air as they brace themselves against the breeze.

Her eyes open wide. She raises the pistol and fires. But the bullet flies far wide of its mark, and so do those she fires subsequently until one finally catches part of one of the insects’ wings. It rears away, retreating back almost as far as the brahmin corpse.

The other begins to circle her, lazily, just out of reach. She keeps her weapon trained on it, still clutched tightly in both hands. But her attention is divided; the wounded stingwing is able to recover its composure enough to zigzag toward her and stab at her arm. The blow is mostly deflected by the reinforced fabric of her Vault suit but still she spins around, letting out a high-pitched and panicked shriek, flailing out with her hand to hit the insect away from her.

With her back turned, the circling stingwing darts in close and buries its mouthparts into her neck. She cries out again, letting go of the pistol to press her hand against the wound. But it’s too late. It takes only a few moments for the stingwing’s poison to begin to take effect. She drops to her knees, still clutching her neck, still trying to aim the gun. But her eyes are already glazed, her breath coming hard and ragged, the time between each inhalation stretching out as her airways constrict. She collapses forward, resting her forehead on her hands, desperately trying to breathe.

It is over mercifully quickly. She loses consciousness and crumples onto the concrete like a broken doll. The insects settle back around the brahmin. And all is quiet.

A few minutes later there is a crackle in the air that, were any human observers present, would be felt more than heard. A flash of blue light explodes out from a point a few feet above the ground, and two figures appear in the road beside the brahmin. Two bright beams of laser fire spark out from a pistol, striking the insects with pinpoint precision and instantly vaporizing the both of them.

X6-88 looks down at the body. “Doctor,” he says. “Please proceed.”

The doctor crouches down beside the body and performs a cursory examination. Soon she looks up, shaking her head though any expression she may be showing is hidden behind the protective mask which covers her face and filters the air she breathes.

X6-88 nods. He kneels beside the body, taking a transponder from his pocket and clipping it onto the woman’s Vault suit. He pauses for a moment as if regarding her face, though his expression remains impassive and he seems entirely unaffected when he rises.

“Return to the Institute with the body,” he says. “Have it repaired and readied for reinsertion. I will reset the domestic robot.”


	13. Hurt/Comfort - Preston Garvey, Paladin Danse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 13 - Hurt/Comfort  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Preston Garvey, Paladin Danse  
> Content advisory: mental health talk, depression

After the thwarted synth attack earlier in the day, Preston had ordered all but those on guard duty to go get some rest. There shouldn’t be anyone down here in the armory. But, here he is, and there’s a shuffling and clattering sounding out from inside the room as well. So he knocks sharply on the door - it’s never good to creep up on someone who might be working with explosives after all - and pushes it open.

Inside, Danse is limping around with a scrap of metal in one hand and a miniature blowtorch in the other. The skin above his right eye is swollen and bruised - that is, where it’s not still covered in dried blood. During the fight he’d taken on a Courser single-handed, disarming and significantly weakening him but receiving a number of injuries in the process, not least that headwound that had rendered him insensible for an alarming few moments.

“Danse,” says Preston. “It’s late. You should be resting.”

Danse looks over, wincing at the light and quickly turning his face away. “This turret won’t fix itself,” he says, gruffly.

“Nor will your head,” says Preston, stepping closer. “Did you even go to the infirmary?”

Danse doesn’t reply, which means he didn’t.

“It’s fine,” he says, eventually.

Which means it’s not.

“Doesn’t look that way,” says Preston. “Not from here, anyway. C'mon, let me take a look.”

As he steps closer Danse pulls away like a nervy brahmin, knocking into a set of shelves and sending a tin of screws and mixed components crashing to the floor. He curses and bends down to start collecting them back up but half way down he starts to topple over, either feeling faint or just from his injured leg giving way under him. So Preston catches him, steadies him, then helps him to a couch set in the corner of the room.

Once there, Danse slumps forward, elbows on his knees and eyes closed tight.

Preston chews his lip. It’s not the best time to have the conversation, he knows that, but at least Danse is sitting still and can’t suddenly start up a piece of machinery and pretend he can’t hear. He’s done that more than enough times.

“Listen,” he says, when Danse lifts his head and shows signs of recovery. “What you did today… I understand.”

Danse remains silent.

“I know what it’s like. To walk into a fight and not care if you come out the other side.”

Danse still doesn’t reply, but he scrubs his hand over his face, calloused skin scratching loudly over his stubble.

“But you gotta catch yourself,” continues Preston. “Before you start seeking out those fights. Trying to bring it to you. Trying to  _make_  it happen.”

Danse continues to stare straight ahead. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

Preston nods. “Yeah. And if you’re not careful, it’s going to put other people in danger.”

There’s a long pause, longer even than before. “You’re right,” says Danse, lowering his head, his voice quieter even than before. “I’m a liability.”

“No,” says Preston. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“It’s true though,” says Danse, a catch in his voice. “I shouldn’t be here at all.”

Preston reaches out and touches a hand to the back of his shoulder. “This is exactly where you should be.”

Danse looks up at him now, his eyes bloodshot, that injury even more alarming close up. “Why?”

“People here care for you. No, don’t you shake your head. Any Minuteman would be proud to lay down their life for you. You’d do it for us. That’s how we do things.”

Danse lets out a low and mirthless laugh. “That’s not care. That’s duty.”

Preston shifts awkwardly. Duty is exactly what led Danse to this point, after all. The Brotherhood’s rigid adherence to dogma, the rejection of any subtlety of thought that led then to the utter betrayal of one of their own.

But that’s not what the Minutemen are like. At least, not on Lt. Gen. Garvey’s watch.

“Alright,” he says. “What if I said I cared.”

“You don’t have to say that…”

“I’m not,” interrupts Preston. “Not just saying it, I mean. I care. It’s a fact. Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot. Neither of us were in a good place. And I’m not saying I’m better now any more than I think you can just snap your fingers and be back to normal, whatever normal is. I just want you to know… I care. And I’m here for you. Any time.”

At long last, a faint smile drifts onto Danse’s face. He nods, and after a few more moments of faintly awkward but still companionable silence, he finally excuses himself to the infirmary.

Preston leans back on the couch. It’s not over, not for either of them. He’s not so arrogant as to think he can fix the man with a few words, any more than anyone could do the same for him. But maybe there’s a little more hope around the place than there had been a few minutes before.


	14. A 100 Word Drabble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 14 - A 100-word Drabble  
> Fandom: n/a  
> Relationship/characters: n/a  
> Content advisory: execrable ‘poetry’

one hundred words  
is not much space  
to write a thing  
and make it ace

while quality  
is not the point  
I still don’t want  
to disappoint

this challenge is  
a test for me  
I like the stress  
it makes me free

but all the same  
I’d rather not  
cause horror, fear  
or bring boycott

so please forgive  
this half-assed fill  
I do not mean  
to cause you ill

and do not feel  
you have to say  
‘oh good job you!  
well done! hurray!’

but see! the end!  
we’re there (almost)  
I guess it is  
time to hit post


	15. Past, Present and Future all in one fic - Deacon, Female Sole Survivor (Duchess)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 15 - Past, Present and Future all in one fic  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Deacon & Female Sole Survivor (Duchess)  
> Content advisory: Deacon-Typical Antics

Duchess settles down at Savoldi’s and orders a couple of Nuka-Colas, leaving one on the bar and opening the other for herself. After a few grimace-inducing sips of the flat and sickly liquid, something moves in the corner of her vision. On the face of it, it’s just a caravan worker taking a few minutes away from his brahmin to light up a cigarette. His coat is blue and covered in stains, and a woolen hat is pulled down low over his forehead and ears.

Under that? A distinctive pair of sunglasses and a pair of eyebrows she can’t not recognise.

So, she calls over to him. “Deacon?”

The worker looks over his shoulder, before turning back and pointing at himself as if to ask  _who, me?_

She allows herself a brief roll of her eyes.

“Sorry luv,” he replies. “I fink you’re’ mistakin’ me for someone else.”

“Deacon, my love,” she says. “Come here. And drop that accent, whatever it’s supposed to be.”

After briefly feigning offence with one hand on his chest and a wounded expression on his face, he approaches. “It was ‘generic guttersnipe’,” he says, in his normal voice. “I thought you might like it. Also, I can’t believe you’re blowing my cover like this.”

She points at the seat next to her. “Sit down, or I’ll be blowing your head off instead.”

“Ooh,” he replies, with an infuriating grin. “Kinky.”

She smiles pleasantly and ignores the provocation. “Well,” she says. “You’ve got me here. Good old Bunker Hill. What is it? Is there news from Desdemona?”

“No,” he says, perching on the stool beside her. “No mission. I wanted to ask you for a history lesson, actually.”

She blinks. “You’re joking.”

“Nope,” he replies. “Deadly serious. I come through here a lot, you know, but I never really looked into what the place was about. The history.” He picks up the bottle and stares at it. “I know bits and pieces, obviously, 'whites of their eyes,’ et cetera. And I’ve taken out every library book there is on the place. Which is… none. So, who better to ask than someone who was here at the time. Open this for me?”

She takes the bottle and fishes out her bottle opener, flipping off the cap and pausing when she realises what he’s just said. “Someone who… here at the time? How old do you think I am?”

He grins again, but this time in the way that suggests he might well be winking behind those glasses. “Not a day over twenty-one.”

She scoffs and hands over the bottle. “Now I know you want something. Come on. Out with it.”

He takes a deep breath. “I don’t want anything. I just think you should know. I… know your secret.”

“And what might that be?”

“You’re a time traveler.”

Duchess takes a calming sip of her cola, the taste of which has the opposite effect but at least it distracts her from the self-satisfied expression on his face.

“Hear me out,” he says, before she can respond. “You’re a time-traveler and you’ve come here for a glimpse of the post-apocalyptic future, so you can go back and write a best-selling sci-fi novel about it.”

She leans in closer. “I was frozen. In a Vault. Without my consent. I’m actually rather upset about that. Remember?”

“That’s what you claim,” he says, darkly. “But how can you explain… this?”

From his back pocket he produces a battered book and hands it to her.

“’ _The Last Man_ ,’” she reads. “Mary Shelley. I… oh.”

“You did say it was your favorite book. Right?”

She brushes her fingertips over the cover of the book, wondering how on on earth he’d laid his hands on it. “Deacon,” she says, eventually. “I’m touched. This was very thoughtful of you.”

“Aww,” he says. “Stop, you’re making me blush.”

There is a touch of colour in his cheeks, but perhaps that’s the effect of the thick coat and knitted hat despite the warmth of the summer evening. Duchess reaches out, and briefly squeezes his shoulder.

“Alright,” she says. “I’ll stop. But only if you promise to drop this time-traveler nonsense.”

“Deal,” he says. “But you should have seen your face. It was totally worth it.”


	16. A piece from your life as fanfiction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 16 - A piece from your life as fanfiction  
> Fandom: n/a  
> Relationship/characters: past-kicker  
> Content advisory: once again, the involvement of my past self should be enough warning.

It’s eight in the morning, some time in August, at some point in the early 2000s. The sun is rising into the sky, it’s approximately three hundred degrees already, and I’ve just woken up in someone else’s tent.

It’s fine though. That was planned. What we did wasn’t, but it was… inevitable, let’s say.

I’m at a festival deep in the wilderness that is the English countryside. I’d say it’s the arse-end of nowhere but I tend to reserve that descriptor for concreted suburbs, industrial parks on cheap and probably poisoned land. This is actually quite nice. Pastoral. Arboreal, maybe. Or verdant, that’s a good catch-all word for this kind of location. It’s the kind of place about which Ye Olde Poets would wax lyrical if it weren’t currently full of grotty tents and grottier English people who’d spent the previous day completely off their tits on whatever concoction of alcohol and/or drugs they’d been able to lay their hands on.

Though… I suppose that depends on the poet.

Anyway, yesterday was arrival day. Set up the tents, crack open the bottles of vodka you’d smuggled in, go see the first bands. I think that happened. It’s all a little… hazy. I do remember some ice cream; white chocolate with just enough chilli to make me doubt whether it was really frozen. “I don’t know if my tongue is hot or cold!” I exclaimed.

That’s when she kissed me first.

Later we found a child’s BMX (pink frame covered in barbie-themed stickers; grimy pink tassels attached to the handlebars; a good distribution of pink spokey-dokeys) and took turns riding it around the festival grounds. No broken limbs, surprisingly, but the tallest of the group did manage to knee himself in the elbow, then fall on the elbow, and made the kind of fuss that made everyone laugh uproariously until someone said ‘uh, I think he’s actually hurt’, which made everyone laugh even more.

I was that person. That’s when she said she loved… how gullible I was, he was obviously okay, what was I even doing?

I was ready to be offended but then she kissed me again and I forgot what I was worrying about.

Then… well. Fade to black.

A dull ache has started up above my right eye but I don’t have time to worry about that. I have to prepare. With underthings engaged, I pull on a pair of fishnets that are fresh out of the packet yet somehow already laddered, and the shortest pair of shorts I’ve ever owned or wanted to own. I slick down my hair with gel that’s thick with glitter, the wide-toothed comb scratching painfully against my hangover-sensitized scalp. 

Then I pick up the final piece of the puzzle, the  _piece de resistance_ ; the tailcoat. It was not made for me or even for anyone with a body like mine, but nevertheless it fits like a glove, silk lining slipping over my bare arms in what I cannot deny is a very enjoyable way. I fasten the buttons, one by one, feeling the fabric pull tight around my chest. It all feels something like preparing for battle, putting on my armor piece by piece. Though I suspect battles of yore involved less glitter.

Well. Probably.

Finally, ducking out of the tent I’m pleased to discover that my boots are still outside it.

So is she.

She’s sat cross-legged in front of a small camp stove, on which a pot of water is just beginning to bubble. She takes a drag on the cigarette that’s caught between her fingers, then as she exhales the cloud of bluish smoke she looks up at me, eyes still heavy-lidded with sleep, and smiles.

“Come here,” she says.

I do, and then I drop onto my knees beside her, the impact only barely softened by the folded picnic blanket on which she’s sat. She reaches up and with a delicate touch, smooths back a strand of hair that I’m pretty sure was already under control.

“You look very… handsome,” she says. The Minnie Mouse ears detract only a little from her message.

The way she looks around the campsite before leaning in to kiss me again does far more.


	17. A Breakup - Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor (Ruby McKay)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 17 - A Breakup  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor (Ruby McKay)  
> Content advisory: angst. Railroad Sole + post-Blind Betrayal Danse, so it ain’t pretty.

Danse looks down at the pile of caps in his hand. The trader has given him a decent price for the skins and assorted scrap he’d carried to the settlement, he knows that. But still. It doesn’t look like much, not compared to the effort it had taken to gather it, and not compared to what he’d estimated for the supplies he planned to procure before heading back to the bunker.

Perhaps he’d have gotten a better price had he not come to Starlight; but where else is there? Diamond City is off-limits, of course. Goodneighbor… he still can’t bring himself to entertain the notion, as hypocritical as it might seem. And Bunker Hill is full of seasoned merchants, men and women who’ve been working on caravans for almost as long as they’ve been able to walk, learning how to get the best deal since the first simple words crossed their lips. Once, he’d felt confident in his own pedigree in that regard. But not any more.

So, Starlight it is. Regardless of what happened here.

He steps away from the vendor, assailed by memories of those few precious weeks, of feeling safe, of feeling… loved. Of waking to find her already looking down at him with sleep-hazed eyes, a gentle hand brushing his cheek, a soft voice reassuring him that everything was going to be okay, that she was going to take care of things, that he just had to trust her.

He had. It had been a foolish mistake.

He closes his fingers around the caps, letting their sharp edges dig into his palm for a moment before sliding them into the side pocket of his pack, already planning a course between the vendors he needs as carefully as if he were planning a military operation.

Then there’s a voice, unmistakable even over the general hubbub of the market, drawling some platitude at his companions. Danse glances over; sure enough, he sees the yellow eyes and battered face of the synth detective from Diamond City. And beside him?

It’s her.

All the words spill through his mind at once.  _How could you. I trusted you. Why did you save me, only to do **this** to me_. A mass of intangible thoughts that coalesce into something closer to a howl of despair than actual words.

In the end, all he can do is stand there. Staring. Staring, as she talks to the synth and the unknown man on her other side, his dark hair and dark glasses giving no clue as to his identity. Staring, as she reaches out to ruffle the hair of a boy with hair almost as bright red as her own. Staring, rooted to the spot, until she looks up and notices him.

Her eyes widen, her eyebrows rise. She glances at her companions, quietly excuses herself, then she approaches.

“Danse,” she says, hesitantly. “It’s… it’s good to see you.”

Again, all the things he could say run through his head at once, a cacophony of the thoughts that have plagued him ever since they last parted.

_Don’t worry_ , she’d said, with a soft kiss on his cheek.  _It’s… just a bit of business, nothing important. I’ll be back soon._

That had been an abject lie.

She clears her throat, bringing him back to the present. “How… have you been?”

Of all the things she could say. This banal question, so matter-of-fact, almost offensively so,  _this_ is what she chooses.

He has only one for her.

“Was it you?” he asks.

Her eyes widen. “What? I…”

“The Prydwen,” he says, abruptly. “I saw it. I watched it fall from the sky. In flames.”

She stands, motionless, no change in her expression except for the guilty flush that just begins to touch her cheeks.

“Was it you?” he repeats.

She lowers her eyes, takes a single breath. “Yes,” she says, flatly. “It was.”

Though he knows it’s the truth, he’s known all along, the casual way in which she admits it breaks something deep within him. She could so easily have said no, it wasn’t her, it was the Railroad, they had committed the atrocity without her knowledge, without her tacit approval, that they had made her do it.

But it was her. It was her all along. And she doesn’t even have the decency to raise her eyes to look at him as she admits it.

“Why?” he asks. “Why would you… How could you… Why?”

“I had no choice,” she says.

“Of course you had a choice,” he retorts, loud enough that nearby vendors glance up from their stalls. “There were squires on that ship.  _Children_. Did you give  _them_ the choice?”

She just closes her eyes. She doesn’t deny it. At least she doesn’t lie. But she does try to argue, and that’s almost as bad.

“You don’t understand,” she says. “The Railroad…”

“I understand perfectly,” he snaps. “The Railroad took you. They changed you. They turned you against everything the Brotherhood, that  _I_  tried to instil in you.”

“That’s not true,” she says, her eyes now open and flashing with anger. “The Railroad helped me when nobody else would. It was Maxson who took what he could and…”

The way she he spits out the Elder’s name infuriates him enough to stop listening, to hold up his hand and silence her. “Don’t you ever say that name again.”

“You don’t understand,” she repeats. “Please, just let me explain.”

Danse steps back, his hand still raised. “No. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear anything from you, ever again.”

Her shoulders slump, and she looks up at him with those dark eyes in which he’d once been happy to lose himself. But he can’t soften. Not now. Not after what she’s done.

“I don’t ever want to  _see_ you again,” he says.

It’s not a lie. Not really. Because he does want to see her again; but as she was before, her heavy-lidded eyes looking down on his, feel her lips smile into her kiss. Not like this. Not as the one who’d destroyed everything he’d ever known. Not as the slope-shouldered woman already lowering her eyes and turning away.

“Don’t worry,” she says, her voice as soft as ever. “You won’t.”


	18. Involve Your Pet - World of Warcraft, Hunter Tae (female troll) and her boar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 18 - Involve your pet   
> Fandom: World of Warcraft  
> Relationship/characters: Hunter Tae (female troll) and her boar  
> Content advisory: self-indulgent origin story.

Tae lies back, resting her head on a backpack that’s not as full of skins as it should be by this point in the day, but certainly soft enough for her to get comfortable. Her belly is full of roasted fish, only recently pulled from the sea that laps gently not far from her feet. The sun burns down from a hazy pink-and-orange sky, and a warm but pleasant breeze caresses her skin.

She sighs deeply and closes her eyes, listening to the gentle rhythm of the sea on sand, of the birds that call out from nests hidden in the jagged orange rocks that line the beach. She’s not falling asleep; oh no, not Tae. Jamai would have her guts if she knew she were sleeping on the job. And letting her guard down even this close to the relative safety of Orgrimmar? A foolish move for anyone, not just a solitary troll.

She’d be safer if she had a pet to guard her, that’s for sure. But she doesn’t, not yet. She’s helped raise a few Sen'jin raptors from egg to full-grown adult, waiting for the one that will go with her on her travels, always by her side. But despite her care and affection, none of them seemed to like her.

_Maybe a raptor just ain’t right for ya,_  Jamai had said, just the other day.  _It ain’t the law, ya know._

_I know that,_  Tae had replied, holding out her scratched and bloodied arm.  _I just… thought it would be. Right, I mean._

_It might still,_  Jamai had said, beginning to clean the wounds.  _You just got to be patient._

_I be patient,_ she’d retorted, wincing as Jamai wrapped a grubby woollen bandage around her arm.  _But I can’t be fightin’ for the Horde without a pet. What if I never find one?_

_You will,_  said Jamai, confidently.  _But she ain’t gonna walk up and sit right by ya. You still got to look for her. And you’ll still be needin’ to earn her trust. But you’ll know, soon as you see her. Trust me._

In Orgrimmar other hunters of the Horde stride about with all sorts of creatures by their sides; prowling cats, great birds, even a slithering hydra that had sent the city’s children skittering away in fear. Tae glances down at her wrists, at the marks left by those sharp-toothed young raptors, wondering what sort of scars those great hunters might bear from taming such fearsome beasts.

That’s when she sees it. A great, hulking shape stood next to the fire, silent until it lets out a fearsome sound. It’s something between a screech and a wet snort that could have come straight from the maw of an ancient and monstrous beast, a creation of the Old Gods themselves. Eyes wide with shock, Tae scrambles up to her knees and reaches out for a weapon, coming up only with an iron spoon that she brandishes toward the creature.

The beast stares straight at her with a pair of close-set, beady eyes. A large, bright pink snout wrinkles slightly as it sniffs the air, while an ear flicks at a stray insect that buzzes too close. Tae relaxes a little. It’s just a boar, and an elderly one at that. The rough mane that springs up on its head and trails down its back is fading to gray, its skin pale and dotted with spots and scars that tell of a long life in the wilds of Durotar. Though its tusks are huge, it’s unlikely to be any danger to her. Boar will eat anything, that’s true, but they don’t care much for troll flesh.

At least, that’s what the orcs say. Tae tries not to think about how they found that out.

“Dontcha be sneakin’ up on a troll like dat,” she says, putting the spoon back in the pan. “Shoo. I got nothin’ for ya.”

The boar continues to stare at her.

“G'wan wit ya,” she says, placing her hand on its side and trying to push it away.

The boar snorts again and leans into her touch as though it thinks she’s stroking it. Tae frowns and retrieves her hand, watching as the boar takes two more heavy steps toward the fire and lowers its snout close to the pan that she’s only just taken from the flames.

“No you don’t,” she says, pulling the pan out of its reach. “You be burnin’ your snoot.”

It doesn’t seem inclined to move on without a taste of her lunch, so Tae pulls out a chunk of blackened fish from the pan, blowing on it to cool it down before holding it out toward the boar. It sniffs at the morsel, tilting its head a little before opening a mouth filled with fearsome and very sharp-looking teeth.

Tae closes her eyes, and offers a silent farewell to her hand.  _This be it,_  she thinks.  _This be the end of me career as a hunter for the mighty Horde, before it even began. You’re a damn fool, Tae. Shoulda become a druid like ya brother, least then you could fly away from the damn thing._

But there’s no pain, nothing but a warm puff of air over her hand. She cracks open one eye, and observes the boar gently closing its teeth on the morsel. She loosens her grip, allowing it to take the fish from between her fingers as delicate as Jamai extracting a cactus spine from a careless raptor’s flank.

The boar leans back and flicks up its head, tossing up the fish and catching it in its mouth, swallowing it down in a single gulp. It glances at the pot, then back at Tae with an expectant look in its black eyes. So she feeds it another piece, which it consumes with the same terrifying yet oddly graceful technique, and then another. Then it sits heavily on the sand beside her, hind legs splaying, tail flicking out and slapping against her thigh.

“’ _She ain’t gonna walk up and sit right by ya_ ’,” she says, with a wry smile. "Ha! Shows what you know.“

The boar snorts in reply and stares thoughtfully out to sea.

Tae reaches out to pat the boar on its - her - flank. "Okay den, girl. If you be game? So be I.”


	19. Domestic Bliss - Jenassa/Female Dragonborn (Corinna)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 19 - Domestic Bliss  
> Fandom: Skyrim  
> Relationship/characters: Jenassa/Female Dragonborn (Corinna)  
> Content advisory: n/a

The bed lets out an alarming creak as Corinna drops heavily down onto one side of it. She scrubs a hand over her eyes and lets out a dramatic groan. “I,” she says, “need a break.”

Jenassa frowns and looks around the room. There are boxes and crates everywhere still, stacked piles of skins and somewhat less ordered bundles of cloth and clothing. Not to mention a slightly alarming pile of bleached animal skulls over in the corner of the room that really ought to be put away so they stop… staring.

“As do I,” she replies. “But there is much to do.”

“Well, you carry on,” says Corinna, airily. “I don’t mind.”

Jenassa stares at her for a moment. “That’s not exactly what I meant.”

But Corinna is not listening; she’s already swinging her feet up onto the bed (still wearing her boots) and leaning back against a pile of straw and feather pillows that seems almost as large as the bed itself. She sighs, deeply, her eyes drifting closed, her arms loosely folded over her stomach.

“You are joking,” says Jenassa.

One of Corinna’s eyes opens again, but just by a fraction. “What?”

“You’re going to go to sleep? While I deal with this mess alone?”

“Maybe. And you don’t have to, but I’m not going to stop you,” replies Corinna, with a slight but infuriating smile.

“You pay me to fight by your side,” says Jenassa, “not keep house for you. If I wanted to do that I could have stayed in Whiterun, found some gullible fool in the Cloud District.”

Corinna props herself up on her elbows. “I… I really can’t picture you doing that whole domestic bliss thing. Besides, I haven’t paid you for a long time.”

“There’s that, too,” retorts Jenassa.

“Oh,” says Corinna. She sits up properly now, straight-backed, a concerned frown crossing her brow.

Realising she’s gone too far, Jenassa touches her fingertips to the bridge of her nose, and lets out a heavy sigh. “My apologies,” she says, quietly. “I didn’t mean that, at least… not in that way.”

Corinna pats the bed beside her. “Come here,” she says. “Sit. Talk to me.”

Jenassa hesitates for a moment. But she knows from experience - not bitter experience, exactly, but certainly repeated experience - that Corinna won’t let her brush the unfortunate utterance under the carpet, not without a discussion. So she trudges across the room and sits beside her.

“It’s not about the pay,” she says. “I misspoke. We agreed the terms, and we discussed the change in… circumstances. And, ah…”

Us.

The word floats in the air, unspoken and yet as clear as if it were carved in stone and illuminated by a thousand torchbugs. But it’s still not quite something she’s ready to say. So she shakes her head and continues.

“But now this,” she says, gesturing around the room. “I don’t mind lending a hand, but… it just feels. Odd. Not uncomfortably so, but… odd, nonetheless.”

Corinna leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees, looking up at her with a serious but warm expression. “Alright,” she says. “I think I understand. Look, this isn’t some ploy to get you invested in the place. It’s not a trap. I just want a base that isn’t in town. I don’t want to leave you here while I go adventuring… I can’t think of anything I want less than to come back to you saying ‘hey sweetheart, dinner’s nearly ready, how was your day?’”

Jenassa snorts with amusement at the sickly-sweet tone she introduces to her voice. She’d certainly never catch her speaking like that.

“Besides,” continues Corinna. “You’re better than me at putting up tents. And I really like watching you work.”

Jenassa averts her eyes, suddenly a little self-conscious. Then there’s a gentle hand on her shoulder, and a soft laugh ringing in her ears.

“You’re tired, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she admits. “I am.”

“Well,” replies Corinna. “Forget the room. We’ll fix it tomorrow. Now, how about you sit back, relax, and I’ll go fetch a couple of drinks.”

“In bed?” says Jenassa. “Really?”

Corinna shrugs. “Domestic bliss,” she says, with a slight smile. “My definition of it, anyhow."


	20. A Never Finished Fic - Robert Joseph MacCready/Female Sole Survivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 20 - A Never Finished Fic  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Robert Joseph MacCready/Female Sole Survivor  
> Content advisory: social drinking

He’s sitting with his back against a wall, knees drawn up in front of him. The shoulder seam of his undershirt chose that morning to split apart, so having changed into a ‘fresh’ one he’s got it in his hands and is sewing it back up. It wasn’t a slow separation, one that gave him time to think ‘better get that fixed before it falls off altogether’ then ignore it until it did. It was a catastrophic, stomach-churning  _riiiiip_  that left most of the sleeve attached to the thorny bush on which he’d caught it and one arm exposed to the world.

She’d laughed, of course. Then she’d stopped and tilted her head, staring at his arm until he’d dragged the sleeve back over it and glared at her.

_What?_

_I didn’t know you had tattoos._

_I didn’t know I had to tell you._

_Wow. Okay. Sorry._

He’d felt bad about it after, he always does when he snaps at her, but she is still talking to him. She doesn’t seem to take anything to heart for long, in fact. He kind of admires her for it now, though he had worried about it at first. Thought she’d let people people walk all over her, over  _him_ , ruin his name. He’s perfectly capable of doing that on his own time.

Right now she’s lounging in the dust a little way away, stretched out on her front, her feet kicking up in the air. She’s got the Pip-Boy off her wrist, just resting on the ground, and is twisting all the dials with her right hand because her other is curled around a bottle of beer.

“This is where we’re going next,” she says. “Tomorrow, I mean.” She spins the device around and pushes it toward him, the buckle of it scraping on the ground.

He dumps the shirt beside him, picks up the Pip-Boy, and looks at the screen. It seems like a hell of a long way to go, but maybe they aren’t where he thinks they are. He stops paying attention to surroundings most of the time because she’s always so far ahead of him, leading the way.

“Great,” he says. “Where are we?”

She rolls her eyes at him and shuffles forward on her elbows, peering over the top of the screen. She turns the dial, making the map even smaller, and mutters a curse to herself. She fixes it to her satisfaction, then points her finger at a spot in the middle of nowhere, even further away from their next destination than he’d thought.

“Here,” she says.

Great.

The payload in the last place had been a chunk of Super Important Technology for the Brotherhood. That whole thing seemed like bull to him but they did pay, and you know, he’s never going to argue with that. But then they’d found two untouched crates of beer under a desk, she’d held up her hand for a high five, and it all seemed like a satisfactory conclusion to to the day. That, of course, was before he’d had to carry half of them. And before he’d tasted the damn things.

He gives her back the device and takes another swig of his beer. It’s just as disgusting as the last one. “This beer is, uh…”

“Shit?” she offers, draining hers.

“Something like that,” he says.

“Back in the day we used to cram lime wedges in the necks of these kinds of beers so we could pretend they weren’t.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” she says.

“Why not just make good beer?” he asks.

She snorts with laughter. “Ah, Mac,” she says. “Always with the important philosophical questions. C'mon. Give me another.”


	21. A Holiday Celebration - Deacon, Strong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 21 - A holiday celebration  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Deacon, Strong  
> Content advisory: just Deeks bein’ Deeks.

Deacon stands in front of the Home Plate and takes a deep breath. He shakes out his hands, squares his shoulders, and plasters a confident expression onto his face.

Now that might not seem like the kind of preparations a guy like Deacon would have to make before going into a building, especially this one. You’ve probably got a mental image of him as a calm, collected, extremely handsome Cool Dude™ who wouldn’t let anything get to him. And you’d be right (especially on the ‘extremely handsome’ bit).

Today, though. Today’s a little different. Today’s a special day. Today’s a certain blue-clad Vault dweller’s birthday, there’s a party in the Dugout Inn and everyone’s invited.

Everyone.

With a quick rub of the arm of the powered-down power armor to his left (for luck), Deacon pushes open the front door. It swings back on well-greased hinges and slams against the pile of junk stored up against the wall, sending a pile of… something scattering loudly over the bare concrete floor.

“Strong!” he says, a little too loudly.

The supermutant is standing at a table in the middle of the room, an empty plate in front of him, a can of purified water held in one massive hand.

“Come on, Strong,” says Deacon. “What did I teach you yesterday? Pinkie out. Or… Greenie. Whatever.”

Strong stares back for a long moment, no change to his expression. Then slowly, stiffly, his (somewhat inappropriately-named) little finger extends.

Deacon beams a smile. “Perfecto,” he says. “Exactly how they do it in England.”

Strong grunts and pours the rest of the can into his mouth, swallowing it in a couple of noisy gulps. Then he holds up the can, and fixes Deacon with another stare before crushing the can in his fist down to about the size of a single bottlecap. “They do this, too?”

“Yeah,” says Deacon, the corner of his mouth beginning to twitch with the effort of holding the smile. “Sure they do. Anyway. Buckle up, pal. It’s time to go.”

Strong glares at him, not that he has many options with a face like that. “Strong already in armor,” he says. “Nothing to buckle.”

“Great!” says Deacon, turning away before the smile can weaken any further. “Let’s… just… go then.”

The trip across the marketplace is uneventful and accompanied by a refreshing lack of screaming, but a pair of bystanders behind the meat shack do gawp openly and brazenly at the two of them. “This is Diamond City business,” drawls Deacon, pointing to the diamond on his armor. “Move along.”

“Yes,” says Strong. “Move.”

Gawpers thus scattered (maybe a little bit of screaming now), the way to the Dugout Inn is clear. The place itself is deserted, but for Vadim with his feet kicked lazily up on the bar.

“Vadim!” says Deacon. “Great party. It’s really kicking.”

“Give it time,” says Vadim, cheerfully. “And alcohol. What can I get you?”

“Nothin’,” says Deacon, gesticulating at Strong. “I’m designated driver. Gotta remain  _compos mentis_.”

“Suit yourself,” says Vadim, with a shrug.

On the table are a stack of party favors. Some banners that probably ought to have been hung by now, some party poppers that look like they’d been stored in water for the last two hundred years, and a number of brightly colored hats.

“Here,” says Deacon, picking one up and holding it out to Strong. “Put this on.”

Strong stares at it. “Put on what?”

“On your head,” says Deacon, patiently. “Like… a helmet! But a party helmet.”

“Helmet?” says Strong. “Bah. Strong not need armor.”

“Don’t worry,” replies Deacon. “This isn’t like your standard puny human armor, damage resistance or whatever. This gives plus one to  _yaaay_.”

Thus convinced, Strong delicately takes a hold of the hat, and perches it on top of his head.

“Yaaay,” says Deacon. “See? Oh, and the elastic goes under your chin.”

Strong grunts and raises his hand once more, hooking one finger over the elastic and letting it settle under his chin.

“My turn,” says Deacon, picking up a hat and placing it on top of his very real and luscious hair. “Yaaay. Man, it really does work.”

“Ow,” says Strong, a plaintive note in his voice.

Deacon looks up just in time to see the elastic ping free, and the hat launch itself sideways from the mutant’s head, spinning away over the floor like an upturned radroach.

“Strong lost yaaay,” says the mutant. “Give another.”

Deacon sighs and looks at the pile of hats on the table.

It’s going to be a long night.


	22. A One-Shot from a Longer Fic - Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor (Grace Adams)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 22 - A one-shot from a longer fic  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor (Grace Adams)  
> Content advisory: kinda spoilers for my fic, Brotherhood Legal. slight objectification of Brotherhood Ideals. not really nsfw but getting a bit frisky by the end.

Grace stretches her legs out over rough cotton sheets that are still crumpled and twisted from the night before. She stifles a yawn, sits up, and reaches out for the cup of coffee steaming gently on the bedside table. She holds the cup under her nose, inhaling the steam and earthy scent of the drink, but only for a moment; the motel’s air conditioning is broken or just shit so it’s too hot to keep it there for long.

“You need a new name,” she says, elbowing the pillow behind her into a more supportive shape and leaning back against it.

“What?” comes a muffled reply.

“A new name,” she repeats, louder. “You need one.”

Danse appears back around the door of the shower room, or at least half of him does. He’s still wet from the shower, skin glistening, the hair on his chest coiling into damp curls. “Why?”

Grace blinks. “For your passport. I know a guy who can sort us out with a couple, and fast.”

Danse frowns. “We can’t go go back to the Commonwealth.”

“No, no. I can talk to him online. Get them delivered anywhere. Here, even. Though I suppose we’ve been here a week already, it might be a better idea to wait until the next place.”

His frown deepens, and he disappears back into the shower room. He still doesn’t like when she talks of those things, of the parts of her past spent skirting or outright breaking the law.

She hasn’t even told him all of it.

Grace rolls onto her front, reaching down onto the floor for yesterday’s discarded newspaper, leafing through the remaining pages. She’s already pulled out all of them that made reference to the Brotherhood’s ongoing fight to expose the Institute. If Danse has noticed the skipping pagenumbers he hasn’t said anything.

“John?” she says, skimming through an article about a chemical spill at Lake Quannapowitt, with a list of injured swimmers. “No, I already know a John. Paul? Ooh, Saul?”

Danse reappears, drier but still scrubbing a towel through his hair. “Do I look like a Saul?” he asks.

Grace tilts her head, narrowing her eyes at him as if considering the question. After a few moments she gives a single-shouldered shrug, or as best as she can lying down. “Do I look like a Grace?”

He crosses the room, which only takes a few steps given the size of it, then lowers down onto his haunches in front of her. “No,” he says. “You don’t look like a Grace. You look like  _my_  Grace.”

Her heart stops. Had anyone else said it, she might have felt nervous at the possessiveness of the phrase, or thought they were joking. She might have rolled her eyes, reached up and gently pushed him off-balance, anything to break the intensity of the moment. But right now she can only stare into his warm brown eyes with a smile that she can’t stop from spreading across her face.

Eventually he’s the one to break eye contact, to gruffly clear his throat and stand, moving out of sight again. After a moment of quiet broken only by the usual impatient sounds of a man getting dressed, the bed creaks and shifts as he sits on it.

“What do we need passports for?” he asks.

Grace pushes herself up on hands and knees and scrambles over to kneel behind him. Resting a hand on one of his shoulders and her chin on the other, she watches as he laces up his boots. “I just thought that… you know. We’ve come this far and it’s been fine, but… no matter how far we go it doesn’t seem far enough. I’d feel better with a sea between us.”

“Alright,” he replies, sitting back and reaching up to rest his hand on hers. “Where are we going to go?”

“Somewhere nice,” she replies. “Hot. Sandy beaches, cocktails. That sort of thing.”

“I don’t know,” he says, his tone unconvinced.

But of course he’s not convinced; she knew it wouldn’t be that easy. He would never be happy to lounge on a beach doing nothing. “Maybe some nice nature walks,” she adds, quickly.

He turns to look at her then, a hint of a smile betraying his amusement and pride at his little joke.

_Oh_ , she thinks.  _Is that how it is now?_

She lifts her eyebrow, lowers her voice to be as warm and sultry as she can make it. “Historical… monuments?”

Now he smiles and shakes his head. She leans in even closer, brushing her lips against his ear as she breathes the words. “Sites of significant geological interest?”

“Grace,” he says. “I just got dressed.”

“Well,” she says, gently running her fingers down his back to the hem of his shirt. “We can soon fix that, can’t we.”


	23. Under the age of 18/in their youth - Vic the Trader

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 23 - Under the age of 18/in their youth  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Commonwealth OCs (inc Vic the Trader)  
> Content advisory: angst. nonbinary OC having an implied bad time of things. misgendering (or at least inappropriate gendering). general shitty behaviour of adults toward children of any and all genders.
> 
> PS this one goes out to anyone who has ever deliberately or thoughtlessly misgendered a person of ‘non-standard’ gender identity. it isn’t made up, it does matter, and your behaviour affects more people than the person you’ve decided is invalid.

Marta stepped out into the open and took a deep breath. The ground was still solid beneath her feet. The sky was still above. And it was blue that day, a pale and hazy blue that left a bright and nebulous halo around the sun.

“Shut the goddamned door,” yelled a voice from within.

She turned back, grabbed the handle, and swung the door shut as hard as she could. But, as always, she caught it just before it slammed into the frame, letting it wrench at her elbow and shoulder before closing it with exaggerated care.

“You’re welcome,” she muttered.

She looked around the settlement. It looked more alien every day. Where before every family had had their own little shack, well-built and carefully constructed, now there were rough lean-tos set up against the side of those buildings and grubby, battered tents on almost every piece of unused ground. Being under the Minutemen’s protection had seemed like a good idea. At least, the way the elders of the settlement had put it.  _We get protection. We get more manpower. It’s win-win._

It wasn’t quite working out like that. More manpower meant more bodies. Crops wouldn’t grow any faster just to support them. And with the hard boundaries of rocky cliffs on one side and sea on the other, they could hardly expand. But that wasn’t any of her concern. Apparently. She was too young, too stupid, too female. Only good for fetching and carrying messages, or for fluttering her eyelashes at the boys to get them to come and do the hard work for free.

On the other side of the settlement she found Vic sat against the side of the shed, an open book resting on drawn-up knees. In the shade cast by a backpack lay a can of purified water and an open packet of snack cakes, its cellophane wrapper shivering in the breeze.

Marta approached cautiously, scuffing her feet in the dust to announce her presence before she spoke.

“Hey, Vic,” she said, lightly.

Vic glanced sharply up at her. A strand of dark hair that had been caught behind one ear fell forward over Vic’s cheek.

“Your hair’s getting long,” she said.

Vic’s expression darkened, just enough for Marta to remember a hissed insult from one of the boys in the settlement, one of the new ones that had arrived in the last few weeks. She didn’t know how to talk to them, not like the others. She could just glare at the ones she’d grown up with, that had always worked. They’d lower their eyes and mumble their sorry, Marta, sorry Vic, and move on.

It wasn’t like that any more.

“I like it,” she said, hurriedly. “It suits you. I’m glad you’re growing it out again.”

Vic just looked back at the book.

Marta swallowed nervously. “Mind if I join you?”

Vic shrugged, one-shouldered, eyes fixed on the page.

She dropped down onto the ground beside Vic, but not too close. Vic didn’t like that. She didn’t, either. That’s how it had always been between them. They knew where each other’s boundaries lay, they had a kind of sixth sense for it. So even since Vic had stopped talking, they could still… communicate. In a way.

Marta leaned back, stretching out her arms to rest over her knees. The corrugated wall of the shack bowed a little against her weight, letting out a protesting creak and causing Vic to shift irritably. But it seemed to hold so she closed her eyes and let the sun soak into her skin, onto her face. It was… nice, almost. The air was soft and warm, though there was already a little damp starting to seep in through the seat of her pants. And now she thought about it, maybe there was a sharp edge to the air, the metallic taste of a coming storm.

Beside her, unaware or uncaring, Vic turned a page.

Marta let her head loll to the side to watch. Page after page turned in a slow and regular rhythm, no indication from Vic’s demeanor to indicate what those printed words were saying. She could read, that wasn’t exactly hard. But something seemed to change when Vic read, even more so when the book was closed and Vic just… *talked*.

But Vic didn’t do that any more. And she didn’t ask for it. Just being over here would get her into enough trouble.

_He’s just trying to get in your pants._  
That’s not true. And Vic’s not…  
They all are at that age.   
It’s not true. And stop calling Vic…  
Well if he knocks you up don’t come crying to me. Now get out of here. Make yourself useful.

Tears began to prickle at her eyes again so she closed them tight, and though a sob threatened to break her composure she fought it back, forced herself to stay calm.

Ground below. Sky above.

When she opened her eyes, Vic had the book closed over one hand and was looking over at her. She cursed herself at first for letting her feelings show. But it almost looked like Vic was preparing to speak, lips parted, breath held. She held her own, hoping she’d hear that voice again, that maybe they’d be able to talk and laugh and…

Vic stuffed the book into the pack and stood up, slinging it over one shoulder.

She looked down at her knees, scratching at a patch of thinning fabric, at the soft white fibers beginning to fray and escape from their weaving.

“Sorry,” said Vic.

She was so lost in her thoughts it took a moment to realise that the word had been spoken aloud. Surprise, pleased even, she looked up. But Vic had already begun to walk away.

Maybe she’d imagined it. But maybe she hadn’t.

She still couldn’t reply.


	24. A challenge from someone else - John 'Charmer' Roscoe, Vincent 'Nate' Hudson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 24 - A challenge from someone else  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: John ‘Charmer’ Roscoe, Vincent ‘Nate’ Hudson  
> Content advisory: alcohol, swearing, referenced violence, an AU I can’t explain :D
> 
> this challenge was received from @theartofblossoming, who wanted an AU in which two of our Soles would meet again, post-apocalypse. their previous meeting ended in a barfight so it seemed somehow appropriate to revisit the territory.

Charmer checks his fly and heads back into the bar. Nothing’s changed since he left, it’s still the same few punters sat around mismatched tables, and his charge sat over in a lopsided booth down the other end. He doesn’t know what’s going down, safer that way. Only that he needs to watch out for trouble.

_No unnecessary fighting,_  Dez had said.  _We don’t want to draw any attention._

He’d spread his hands, a gesture of innocence that he’d managed to maintain even while Glory snorted her amusement in the background.  _Me?_  he’d said.  _Never._

He trails the bottom of his beer on the bar, glancing up at the door whenever it swings open to let a new punter in. Not too many, not on a night like this. It’s hot, sticky, better used lounging out on the steps in front of shacks instead of a smoke-filled bar like this.

Still, they do trickle in. Young woman, blonde, sharp-faced like she’d cut you sooner than look at you. Someone after that with a newsboy cap pulled down so far over their eyes he can’t make out their face. Then a big lad, broad-shouldered, crooked nose and a neatly-trimmed horseshoe moustache that sinks down either side of his mouth, right to his jawline.

Charmer frowns and looks back down at his beer. American pisswater, and two hundred years old at that. It was enough to drive a man to the local moonshine except he’d done that once and learned his lesson. The smell of it was enough to make his eyes water and stomach churn.

The moustache comes and stands right beside him at the bar and orders some.

Charmer rubs his hands over his eyes and tries not to breathe in too deep.

“Do I know you?”

It’s the moustache, of course. His voice is deep, rough, confident like he’s used to ordering people around. Not unusual in the Commonwealth, no, but this sounds like it’s got some training behind it. And it has more of an old Bostonian sound to it, instead of the more neutral blend that’s common in the post-apocalyptic version of the place.

“Dunno mate,” he says, chancing a glance over his shoulder. The newsboy has sidled over to his own charge, just settling down into the booth for whatever awkward conversation they’re supposed to be having. “Where’d we have met?”

“French Guiana,” comes the reply.

Internally, Charmer freezes. He’s seen his real name on a terminal or two, and the Institute have their ways of finding shit out about a person. Chickens always come home to roost, after all. Could do without it being dropped in his lap while he’s supposed to be ‘on duty’, though.

So externally, he just laughs. “Mate,” he says. “I don’t know what you’re on, but you need to give it up.”

Then he looks up at the guy, at that distinctive moustache and it dawns on him. They have met before. A dingy bar. Americans and locals, tensions high on all sides, and him in the middle of it. French bloody Guiana.

“Fuck me,” he says, casting his mind back, trying to remember. “Hudson?”

“Yeah,” replies the moustache - Hudson - with a half-smile. “And you were…”

“John,” says Charmer, quickly. “John’ll do.”

Hudson nods, thoughtfully. “You broke my man’s jaw, you know.”

“And my hand,” replies Charmer.

Hudson sucks in a breath through gritted teeth. “I know how that is.”

A moment follows, quiet, reflective. A hundred questions roll through Charmer’s mind, most of which are  _What the fuck?_ , but at least a few instances of  _Why are you, of all people, here right now?_

Luckily Hudson reveals that for himself, or at least part of it. He leans forward on the bar, and looks past Charmer over to the booth. “You with the little one?”

Charmer snorts with amusement. “Don’t let her hear you say that. You with the newsboy?”

Hudson nods.

Then there’s a movement in the corner of Charmer’s vision. Fast, too fast. The sharp-faced blonde is heading to the door. Might think she’s just on her way home except once she’s out of it there’s an extra thump as if something or someone is leaned up against it to stop anyone getting out. And there’s an uneasy change in the room, a little less conversation but a bit more noise, as if there’s a few guys just shuffling in their seats, looking at each other, waiting for a sign to kick off.

Charmer looks at Hudson, and Hudson looks right back.

“You hearing what I’m hearing?” he says, quietly.

“Sure am,” replies Hudson, sliding off his seat and pulling himself up to his full height.

“Well,” says Charmer, following suit and sizing up the opposition. “At least we’re on the same side this time.”


	25. Pre-relationship - Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 25 - Pre-relationship  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor  
> Content advisory: smooches. people communicating only through the medium of Meaningful Looks™. also even though there is a smooch it’s still pre-relationship, technically speaking, so it still counts.

She washes her hands clean of grease and checks to make sure none of it has ended up on her dress; or not too much, anyhow. She doesn’t make a habit of tending to her weapons while dressed in such an impractical way, Danse’d probably kill her if he saw her without protective eyewear. But she’d been in the armory looking for something else, spotted the broken shotgun, and it just… well. Like so many things in her life, it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

The long, gray grease mark over her right hip will be the lasting reminder of that particular bad decision.

She doesn’t tend to wear dresses at all in fact, not any more. But it’s just too damn hot for her usual garb. That morning, the thought of dragging on thick jeans no matter how practical and protective they might be had brought her out in a cold sweat. Or a hot sweat, rather. Besides, if the General of the Minutemen can’t walk around her own Castle in whatever damn clothes she wants, what’s the point of having it at all?

So, the dress, dust- and now grease-stained as it is. She’d pulled her hair back into an uncustomary ponytail too, just to keep it out of her eyes as she worked. Now as she leaves the armory she loosens it, scrubs her hand over the back of her scalp to release the tension, sighing in disgust at the sweat that’s collected at the base of her neck.

When she looks up, there’s Danse, stood right in the corridor. His eyebrows are high and his eyes wide, probably just not expecting to see her there at this time of day.

“Danse!” she says. “You’ll be pleased to know I’ve finally fixed my shotgun.”

“Good,” he says, after a moment or two, then he frowns slightly. “I’m… glad to hear it.”

That’s not the reaction she was expecting. He’s been going on at her for weeks about it, or at least it feels that way. She tilts her head, questioning. “Are you alright? You seem a little… out of it.”

He nods again and says that he is, but his eyes are drifting away, refusing to meet hers. And he’s… kind of a mess, at least in Danse terms. His hair is maybe a little wild and the corner of his collar is crumpled, the rough plaid fabric caught up on itself.

“Look at you,” she says. “Have you even seen a mirror today? What are you doing, Danse? This isn’t like you.”

Then without really thinking, she reaches up and pulls his collar free of itself, smoothing it down with her fingertips.

He lifts his hand to hers and though he draws it away from his collar he doesn’t let go; he holds it, curling his fingers around the back of it and gently pressing his thumb into her palm. For a moment he seems about to speak, with lips parting and a slight intake of breath, but then he looks into her eyes and he almost doesn’t need to any more. She knows that look. She’s seen it before. It’s not the cold, blue challenge of the ones who’ve wanted to tame her. It’s warm, and soft, and… to be honest, full of a word that begins with ‘l’ that she’s really not ready to contemplate just yet. It’s bad enough that she’s been thinking that about him for the last few months.

But there it is, right there. Her hand is in his, his eyes are on hers, and in another life, in another time, she knows exactly what she’d do. She’d draw him into a kiss, pull him into a room even, show him exactly how she felt about him. But now? Here? She can’t do that, no matter how he looks at her. She’s done so much to harm him. Without her, he’d still think he was human, whatever that even means. Without her he’d still be with his friends, with his comrades.

But without her, maybe he’d be dead.

_Alright,_ she thinks, for the thousandth time. _Maybe this is better for him. But I still don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve him._

_But isn’t that exactly what he said?_

As if in a dream she lifts her other hand, rests the palm against his chest. She can feel his heart beating under it, fast, almost as fast as her own. He makes no attempt to move it so she slides it up over the checkered fabric of his shirt, watches her fingers curl around his collar. And it only takes the faintest of pulls on it to bring him toward her, his nose to rest against hers, and finally for their lips to touch.

There are no sparks, no fireworks, that’s not how this works. But there’s a desire, a  _need_ , one that she thought was only hers to control, that now she knows is shared. In a single moment it’s acknowledged, fulfilled, and multipled to absurdity by his lips on hers, by a brush of fingertips on her cheek, and the lightest of touches at her waist.

They’re interrupted, of course. A call from the courtyard, or somewhere else on the Castle grounds. She closes her eyes and pulls away, not wanting to see him go. Not wanting to see him raise his chin, to nod his greeting to whoever it is, to go back to normal, formal, official Danse. And not wanting to see him embarrassed, averting his eyes, wishing he hadn’t just done what he had.

But then he says her name. And when she opens her eyes he gives her a slow, warm smile, one she now realises he’s been giving her for weeks, months, even, but she’s been too blind to see what lay behind it.

Nothing’s changed. But nothing will be the same. And maybe that’s okay.


	26. A Crossover - Fallout 4 and World of Warcraft - Piper Wright, John Hancock, Immodesty the Fabulous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 26 - A crossover  
> Fandom: Fallout 4 and World of Warcraft  
> Relationship/characters: John Hancock, Piper Wright, Immodesty the Fabulous (a goblin priestess)  
> Content advisory: this is the nichiest thing ever to have niched. I apologise in advance if you risk reading it. XD

As the booming, thunderous sound of the transporter dies away, Immodesty drops down onto her hands and knees and groans loudly. Her ears are buzzing with the sound and every single inch of her skin is tingling from the sensation of being torn apart and being put back together again.

“Wow,” she says. “What a rush.”

After regaining her breath she rises to her feet, dusts down her dress and looks around. The teleportation platform on which she’s standing is a little larger than she was expecting, huge great pillars reaching up into the sky, lit by an exciting but probably completely unnecessary lightning effect.

“They get a shaman to decorate this?” she muses. “Yikes. OTT or what.”

She shakes her head and looks back down, finding a figure stood in front of the platform staring up at her. Oddly dressed; deep red coat, some kind of weird puffy hat, but that’s not the worst of it.

It’s a  _human_.

Immodesty raises her hands and a quick shield, striking a dramatic pose. “Stay back,” she hisses. “I may be specced discipline but I can still hurt ya.”

The figure stares back, wide-eyed with bemusement; not that human faces have many options in that regard. But before she can speak, another figure wanders in from the side. A little smaller than the human. Skinny, too, and dressed in some kind of advanced Southsea garb and a tricorn hat. This one looks up at her with a pair of big black eyes, and just blinks a couple of times.

“You ain’t Nate,” he says, after a moment.

Immodesty lowers her hands. “Well this ain’t Suramar, so we’ve both been sold short.”

“Soo.. ramar,” he replies, as though he’s never heard the name before. “Right.”

Well nobody’s slinging spells or anything at her, so she figures she may as well make the most of it. She steps toward the edge of the platform and holds out her hand for him to help her down.

“Name’s Immodesty,” she says. “The Fabulous. And you are?”

“Hancock,” he says, slowly. “The… Mayor, I guess.”

He extends a hand as requested, all mottled skin stretched thin over sinew and bone. She takes it, and lets him help her down the steps, stopping right close in front of him and squinting up into his face.

“Hoo-eeh,” she says, appreciatively. “Where’ve they been hiding you? You could be Sylvanas’ next poster boy.”

He laughs, low and hoarse. “Maybe I’ve just been waiting for you.”

Immodesty snorts. “You flatter me. I love it by the way, you can do more of that.”

“Uh, Hancock?” says the human, sidling closer. “Who… is this?”

“Not the faintest idea,” he says with a smile. “But I like her already.”

Immodesty doesn’t much like being talked about when she’s right there, even when it’s flattering. So she draws herself up to her full height, puts her hands on her hips, and pitches her voice at just the right level to make everyone stop and look at her.

She’s very good at that.

“So,” she says. “He’s Hancock, I’m Immodesty, who the hell are you?”

“Uh,” says the human. “Piper.”

“Right,” says Immodesty. “Next question. Who’s in charge?”

“Uh,” says Piper. “Nobody. Not really.”

“C'mon,” says Immodesty. “Somebody’s gotta be in charge. Who wears the crown? Who takes the taxes? Who has the biggest… sword?”

Hancock lets out a snort of amusement. “I guess that’d be Nate. On all counts. And he stepped on that platform three hours ago. We were expecting him back but… I guess we got you instead.”

“Oh,” says Immodesty. “Well, he’s probably been vaporized so who’s next?”

“What?” Piper’s eyes are even wider than they had been before. She looks about ready to cry, actually, and a crying human ain’t something Immodesty wants to deal with. Not now, not ever.

“I mean,” she says, reassuringly. “That’s worst case. We’ve probably just swapped.”

“So…” prompts Hancock. “Where is he?”

Immodesty frowns. “If he’s lucky he’s gonna be somewhere in the most dangerous and inhospitable environment ever found on Azeroth, and judging by the looks of you, totally unequipped to deal with it.”

Hancock blinks. “And if he’s… not lucky?”

Immodesty frowns. The answer is Orgrimmar, a makeshift teleportation platform set up in the middle of the Goblin district to help the Horde’s finest (i.e. goblins with enough gold to pay their way) to get straight to the battlefront without having to go through freaking Dalaran. Thinking back to the last time an unaccompanied and unarmed human made their way into the Horde’s capital city she figures it probably wouldn’t reassure them any to tell them.

“Eh, don’t worry about that, I’m sure he’ll be fine,” she says, ignoring Piper’s exasperated sigh. “Anyway. You both seem to know where you are and what you’re doing. Why don’t you take me to a bar and get me a drink. I’ll make it worth your while.”


	27. Substance Use - Vic the Trader

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 27 - substance use  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Vic the Trader (young version), a random OC  
> Content advisory: drugs and alcohol and cigarettes. don’t do any of them, kids. mildly nsfw for implied sexual content.

The vodka’s almost gone. As Vic leans over to it for a refill the oil lamp in the corner of the tent catches the surface of the liquid just right, causing it to shine like liquid gold. But as the bottle’s uncorked, the scent betrays that warm appearance. It’s bright, yes, but harsh and acerbic. Maybe that’s a good thing. It’s at least sharp enough to cut through the heady aromas of jet and cigarette smoke that hang thick in the air.

With glass refilled Vic leans back, hitches up a knee and rests the book back on it. It’s not dark in the tent, it never really is, but the font is small and the words seem to dance around on the page like a flock of tiny ink-dark birds. One or two seem to settle briefly on their lines, as if those birds have settled on long-silent telephone wires to stare down with black eyes, to draw Vic’s attention in a way that can’t be ignored.

_Leave_ , says one.

_Now_ , says another.

Vic snaps shut the book and tosses it aside. It thumps down on the mattress, the sound barely softened by the rough, moth-eaten blankets strewn over it.

Ria shifts and lets out a soft complaint. Vic reaches out with a hand, strokes it down her bare back. It’s only meant as a soothing gesture, but it does more to disturb her than the sound of the book itself. Should have known, really. Her skin always seems more sensitive than Vic’s own, so much readier to prickle into goosebumps at the slightest touch.

She flexes her shoulders, rolls herself over onto her side, propping herself up onto her elbow with a slight yawn. She regards Vic for a moment, blinking slow and lazy as a cat, before reaching up to pat a clumsy, sweat-dampened hand against Vic’s cheek. Her pupils are still blown out, her focus vague and shifting, but maybe that’s as much down to the darkness of the place than the chems they’d shared earlier.

“You still readin’?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

She sighs. “Don’t know why you bother. S'just words. Why read when you can talk to people?”

“They are talking to me,” says Vic. “They’re just not… here.”

“Huh,” she says. “I never thought it… of it like that.”

Vic picks up the book, opens it again. It falls open of its own accord. It’s not the same pages Vic was reading before but somehow the same thing happens anyhow. Words flutter, disperse, coalesce.

_Leave._

_Now._

Vic picks up the vodka, drinks half of it, willing the words to stay still and do what they’re supposed to do. But they don’t. They only seem to stand out clearer, more defined, no matter how hard Vic tries to concentrate on the rest of the page.

Ria hitches herself up closer, her shoulder just pressing up against Vic’s, her hand just creeping over a knee. She smiles, warmly, but her eyes are flickering down to the half-empty glass so it’s obvious what she really wants. Half-grateful for the distraction, Vic lifts the glass to her lips. She tips back her head and closes her eyes, swallowing the vodka down with a satisfied smile.

The kiss that follows is warm and soft, tempered only by the harsh and acerbic taste of the vodka.

“See,” she says, drawing away. “Why read when you can do real stuff with real people.”

“Because,” says Vic. “I think it’s trying to tell me something.”

She snorts with laughter, even as she clambers over to settle with her knees either side of Vic’s hips. “I’m trying to tell you something too. Can you guess what it is?”

The book is still caught in one hand, and though the words are certainly invisible from this distance they’re still there.

**Leave.**

**Now.**

It’s nothing. It’s imagination, paranoia, it’s the jet it’s the vodka it’s everything.

_Everything._


	28. A character doing your job - Proctor Quinlan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 28 - a character doing your job  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Proctor Quinlan, a lil bit of Maxson and Ingram too  
> Content advisory: if you are my colleague and you are reading this because I’ve been doxxed please note that I love you and I love my job that is all

Stifling a yawn, Proctor Quinlan sits down at his desk and turns on his terminal. While it warms up, he picks up all the pens and pencils strewn over the desk and floor and puts them back in their tin.

Emmett jumps up onto the corner of the desk and stares at him, proudly.

“Damnable creature,” grumbles Quinlan, reaching out to scruff the cat’s ears.

While the green lettering on the terminal’s screen begins to settle into clarity, Quinlan pulls his notepad from the drawer and jots down the order of the day. Reports, reports, reports. Then a few more reports. A meeting about reports, scheduled exactly at the time he usually heads to the mess for lunch, and then one to discuss a member of his staff’s performance-related issues. Largely to do with reports, of course.

Quinlan sighs, and turns his attention to the terminal. The first report is a simple matter. Collate data sent in from other areas of the Prydwen and airport, make it look as un-threatening as possible and then make it available for the Elder by 10am. Of course those other areas will leave it until approximately 9:55 to send the information over, but he always did work best under pressure.

That’s what he tells himself, anyway.

There are several new messages blinking away in the internal mailing system. One from Cade, that’s good. He can generally be relied upon to send the data on time. Nothing yet from Ingram, as usual. And five messages from Teagan; one providing data, three providing corrections, then two more attempting to make light of the entire situation.

Quinlan sets about his task, methodically working through the rows of data with a practiced hand. Almost immediately, of course, a voice interrupts him. He blinks slowly, marking off the row of data on which he’s currently working before looking up at the Knight standing in the doorway.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Could you repeat that?”

“Is today’s report ready,” says the Knight. “Sir.”

He holds the man’s gaze for a moment or two. "Is it ten o'clock?“ he asks, with a forced hint of lightness to his voice.

"No,” replies the Knight.

“Then it’s not ready.”

“Oh,” says the Knight. “When will it be?”

“Ten o'clock,” says Quinlan.

“Oh,” says the Knight. “Okay. I’ll come back.”

Quinlan smiles thinly and returns to his task. 

At 9:40, Ingram’s data appears.

_From: Proctor Ingram  
Subject: delicious data. does your head hurt as much as mine? see you for hair of the dog at 1._

Suddenly the mild discomfort behind his right eye develops into something a little more demanding of his attention. Then another shadow crosses the doorway, heralding another interruption to his work.

“It’s still not ten o'clock,” he says, irritably marking off another row of data. “Go away and polish your armor or something.”

“What?”

Quinlan looks up. In the doorway stands not a Knight. Not a Squire. But the Elder himself, his brow furrowed into a deep frown.

“Ah,” he says, rising slowly to his feet. “Elder.”

“Hmm?” says the Elder. “What did you say?”

“Nothing important,” says Quinlan, hurriedly. “How may I be of assistance?”

“This report,” says the Elder, idly leafing through what must be yesterday’s version. Quinlan fervently hopes he’s looked at it before now. “Can you split out the data by sub-department too?”

Quinlan’s eyes slide over to the clock again. 9:45. “Do you need that for today’s report, Sir?”

“Is that possible?” asks the Elder.

“Theoretically,” he replies. “Though I do have…”

“Excellent,” says the Elder, before saluting and walking away. “Ad Victoriam, Proctor.”

Quinlan blinks twice, staring into the now empty corridor. “… other duties to attend to.”

Luckily the data that comes to Quinlan - eventually - is very granular so it should just be a matter of increasing the number of rows that are…

“Proctor Quinlan?”

_Oh for f…_

He pauses again, just keeping a hold of his temper. He looks up over the top of his monitor. He nods a polite acknowledgement to the person stood there. This time it is a Squire, one he had several days before tasked with a large and very important project related to the intelligence gathered by Brotherhood patrols since entering the Commonwealth.

“Uhhhh,” says the squire, slowly. Though Quinlan can’t see her feet, he can hear the sound of her twisting the sole of her shoe on the ground in nervousness.

“Squire,” he says, bracing himself. “Go on.”

“How… uh. How do I restore a previous version of a file?”

Quinlan closes his eyes and takes a long, deep breath. “One moment,” he says, and leans down to his terminal.

_To: Proctor Ingram  
Subject: can we make it 12?_


	29. Graphic depictions of violence - Vic the Trader

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 29 - Graphic Depictions of Violence   
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Vic the Trader (young version), a random OC  
> Content advisory: Graphic Depictions of Violence (funnily enough). kind of a follow-on from the ‘substance use’ prompt on the 27th.

The attack starts on the other side of the encampment. The defences there drop down to little more than a few pieces of stretched cloth and a prayer, but that’s the deal. You want defences? You build them. You want a spot closer to the concrete bunker around which the encampment grew up? You earn it.

Vic’s still a little way from that bunker, but far enough from danger to be woken not by the hostilities but by a few rough slaps on the shoulder. Vic grumbles and tries to move away from the annoyance, only to be grabbed by the arm and practically forced up. Ria can be quite persuasive when she wants to be; and right now she wants exactly that. She’s wild-haired, wild-eyed, and her slurring voice is urging Vic to get up,  _get up, somethin’s goin’ down, we need to help._

Alright. Up.   
Pants. Shirt.   
Gun. Knife.   
Is there time for armor? Maybe a piece or two.  
No, wait, boots, can’t do this shit bare-footed. Those first.

Once prepared, Vic waits for the main spotlight to pass over the tent before ducking out of it. And from there it’s just a few steps to a patch of shadow cast by a shack made of wooden pallets and strips of thick canvas ripped from the side of an old truck.

The light swings lazily back over the open ground in the center of the encampment. Once it’s passed, the darkness seems even more profound, so much so that Vic begins to wonder if vision will ever return. But it does, in a harsh and bright sweep that glows up faster and brighter even than the rising of the sun.

It passes once; the space is still empty.

It passes twice; there’s movement in the distance, but nothing that should rouse alarm.

Then the third sweep reveals a figure just stepping out into the open. Braver than the others, or maybe more stupid. He doesn’t have a gun, or doesn’t seem to. He’s got a tire iron in his hands and an odd hunch to his back. He’s turned away, glancing sharply around, on the hunt for a victim.

It’s not going to be Vic. Vic raises the gun and takes a shot. The raider recoils but it only seems to irritate him, not to cause any damage. And when the spotlight swings around again Vic sees why. He’s wearing a set of armor on his upper half, one that glints blue-ish in the light. Metal, then, and sturdy stuff. No use shooting him, not directly.

Vic ducks back down and takes shelter behind an empty oil-drum; hopes it’s empty anyway. This isn’t Gunners so there’s no laser fire, but in a camp lit mostly by candles and lamps that hardly makes much difference. Well. Candles, lamps, and a giant spotlight that sears the eyeballs of any fool who happens to be standing right out in the open.

The raider is certainly not enjoying himself. Disoriented, he takes a few steps in one direction, then a few in another, glaring around himself with watering eyes.

“Hey asshole,” says Vic, before quietly ducking around the back of the shack.

The raider spins on his heels, squinting into the next swing of the spotlight and taking another few faltering steps toward where Vic had just been. “Come out here, you little bitch,” he spits.

Vic takes a breath and rises up, darting forward to grab hold of the back of the raider’s armor and pull him sharply backwards. He curses, beginning to twist himself around in an attempt to balance himself; but a kick to the back of the knee fixes that. He collapses into the dust, his head snapping back into the ground with a sickening crack and falls still.

Vic takes the opportunity to glance around the encampment and assess the situation. There’s another pair grappling a few dozen feet away, but neither of them seem to have guns so whoever wins probably deserves it.

A shuffling sound from behind has Vic turning again. The raider is beginning to push himself back up and reaching out for the dropped tire-iron. “I’ll fucking kill you,” he hisses.

Vic discharges a bullet into the man’s unprotected thigh, then kicks the weapon out of his reach.

There’s still some movement down the far end of the encampment, but from what Vic can hear over the raider’s howling it seems as though the gunfire is moving further away. There’s more shouting, too, but it’s hard to tell if they’re warnings or celebrations.

Then Ria runs up, barefoot, almost crashing into Vic’s shoulder in her eagerness to talk. Her bangs are twisted up all over the place and she has streaks of something dark down the side of her face; dirt or grease or blood, it hardly matters at this point.

“I think we got ‘em,” she says. “I seen two of them running away. Fuckin’ pussies.”

Behind, the raider hisses out an angry, grunting  _fuck you_  that has her turning around and spitting at him.

“Shut your fuckin’ mouth,” she says, before turning back to Vic. “We know where they’re from already, Bex got it out of one of 'em. We don’t need him.”

Vic shrugs. “Wasn’t keeping him alive for any reason. Just didn’t want to waste the bullets.”

She hefts her wire-wrapped bat, covered in stains as dark as those down her cheek, and grins. “Don’t worry, babe,” she says. “You won’t have to use any.”


	30. Role Reversal - Piper Wright, Paladin Danse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 30 - Role Reversal   
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Piper Wright, Paladin Danse  
> Content advisory: this is a fragment of a never-written fic. the full version would have been in the format of a ‘long read’ article in the weekend edition of Publick Occurrences, with subheadings chosen largely at random and maybe some comedy Commonwealth-themed adverts in the middle of it. but time is of the essence so just pretend that’s happening.
> 
> ETA OH I FORGOT CONTEXT: this is about five years after Institute kaboom and Piper has been on a mission to find The Truth since then.

My calls for eye-witness accounts of any part of her life had mostly resulted in hoaxers or paranoid conspiracy theorists, and I was about ready to give up. Then one day, a slightly-built woman with a shock of orange hair turned up on the doorstep and told me she had something for me. Someone.

I almost waved her away but she told me I’d be interested in this one.

She provided a complicated list of instructions involving very specific time windows and directions and precautions to take, which seemed to me to be fitting solidly into the conspiracy theorist bucket. But after some consideration, I decided to take the risk and follow the trail. It led to the back room of a bar in a settlement he won’t let me name.

It was him. Paladin Danse.

Or rather, Ex-Paladin.

* * *

I met him once before, in Diamond City, back before any of this. He was just your average hard-nosed, clean-living, relatively-senior officer in a xenophobic militaristic cabal. He had glossy black hair and dark, brahmin-like brown eyes set in a face that always seemed to show a hint of pride, at least when Rousseau was nearby.

Now, he’s what can be charitably described as a mess; filthy clothes, a rough beard twice as long as the unevenly-cut hair on his head, and dark circles under his eyes that speak of five years or more of sleepless nights. He’s nervous, twitchy, rubbing his hands on his knees when he’s thinking. His head whips around at every sound, whether it’s the creaking of my seat or a bird squawking outside the window.

“What do you want to know?” he asks.

I ask him to start at the beginning.

* * *

On December 23rd 2287, Cambridge Police Station was under siege. A slow trickle of ferals had turned into a full-on flood, drawn by the stench of their decomposing kin. Already short-handed and low on supplies after a raider attack the week before, it was looking bad for Recon Squad Gladius.

At that name, he looks over his shoulder, toward the door.

Rousseau turned up in the nick of time, with a bag full of guns and a dog at her side. She pitched into the battle immediately, and demonstrated not insignificant tactical prowess, as he puts it. She impressed in that battle, and on some further tasks with which Danse asked her to assist. He was so impressed, in fact, that he extended an invitation to her. Join the Brotherhood of Steel, as an Initiate.

It wasn’t his most popular move.

“She was received with some caution,” says Danse, his tone betraying the understatement. “The Brotherhood are a tight-knit group. We - they - don’t take kindly to strangers. But once you’re in, you’re in.”

Rousseau was in.

She was welcomed into the fold and formed a crucial part of the Brotherhood’s efforts to take down the Institute. They diverted some of their resources and expertise into sending Rousseau in, building a relay that hooked into everyone’s favorite but now defunct classical radio station.

To this day, nobody knows what happened during that first meeting with the Institute. Some claim that this is when it happened, that before this point she had been the 'real’ Rousseau, replaced by a mindless automaton. But Danse disagrees.

“Absolutely not,” he says. “She was the same person when she returned. She was still just as determined to end the Institute, if not more. If their intention was self-preservation they did not go about it the right way.”

It feels a little like he’s trying to convince himself of that fact.

Whatever did happen during that meeting, she did manage to obtain a sampling of data from the Institute’s terminals, data that enabled the Brotherhood to push on with Liberty Prime.

Data that was her downfall.

On it was proof that she had been created not before the war, but just six years earlier, in the very same laboratory that she had just visited. Medical records were cross-referenced from details taken on her entry into the Brotherhood. It was confirmed.

Rousseau was a synth.

Accusations flew back and forth. Danse himself was accused of being complicit in the conspiracy, and as a Paladin the penalty for such a crime was severe. But the Elder showed him mercy. To prove his innocence, he would have to exact the punishment on her.

In essence, his life was made contingent on hers.

He tracked her down at a boathouse just south of Malden. The confrontation was confused and confusing.

“She had no idea,” he says. “She refused to even countenance it.”

Even as she got onto her knees, she was protesting her innocence, not seeming to believe that he’d go through with the order, asking him to look her in the eyes and tell her he believed it was true.

He tells me he closed his eyes as he pulled the trigger.


	31. A gift fic - Corinna May/Wade Russell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> August fic challenge 2017: Day 31 - a gift fic  
> Fandom: Fallout 4  
> Relationship/characters: Corinna May/Wade Russell  
> Content advisory: mildly nsfw, mostly for the foul-mouthedness of this, the OTP that can never be. except in this AU which I still can’t explain but I don’t caaaaaare I do what I want
> 
> note: this is a gift for @deichqueen who is probably my favouritest person I’ve met since starting to do this writing thing. she’s been there for me in bad times and good, and I like genuinely like love her as a person.
> 
> this… this might seem like an odd way to show that but I am not good at demonstrative shows of anything so haha help
> 
> if nothing else DQ I hope it makes you laugh. <3

Corinna smacks her hand against the side of the machine. “Come on,” she says. “Work, you asshole.”

It doesn’t, of course. It lets out a faint mechanical whirring that’s just promising enough for her to start to believe that it will. Then it falls obstinately silent once more.

“Stop fucking me around,” she hisses, stabbing at the power button again. “Just do the thing.”

It doesn’t.

Of course.

She takes a step back, closes her eyes, and breathes away the anger. Some of it, anyway. Because before she can really get her temper under control she realises there’s some kind of commotion happening outside. A dull thudding, like something hard repeatedly hitting on wood. Cursing, lots of that. Then a couple of loud splashes.

“What the hell are you doing out there?” she yells.

But there’s no reply. All goes quiet, in fact. Suspiciously so.

She shoots the machine a last angry glance and then slams her way over to the door, or at least the frame of it because there’s still no actual door there. Outside, the scene is something approaching idyllic. The river laps quietly against the aged and mouldering timbers of the pier, and the whole stretch of water shimmers in the morning sun. But oddly, despite the cursing she’d heard, there’s no sign of Russell.

Then, by the side of the pier, she notices a body bobbing to the surface.

Ass-first.

_Fuck._

Stomach lurching, she takes a few steps toward the water. But even as she does he begins to move; first his arms breaking the surface, then his head rises up with a dramatic and glittering spray of water. He looks around, momentarily disoriented, then fixes his eyes on the pier. He grabs a hold of the side of it and pulls himself up, thrusting forth out of the water in a vision that can only be described as majestic.

“Fuck,” he exclaims, ruining that vision. A little, anyway. He hauls himself up onto his elbows and hangs there off the side of the pier, alternately drawing in deep and ragged breaths and coughing out water at the same time.

Corinna remembers herself and heads over to help. She reaches down, holds out her hand to pull him up. She tries to set her feet steady on the wooden boards but there’s something… slippery all over them so as soon as he does take her hand she begins to lose her balance.

“Shit,” she says, grabbing her hand away. “I can’t…”

After a few more curses and a loud and dissatisfied groan, he manages to drag himself up onto the pier. Once his feet are fairly steady on the ground, she holds out her hand again to help him up to standing.

“Thanks,” he says, with a sharp look at her. “I don’t think.”

She ignores the jab. “What the hell happened?”

He ignores her right back, tipping his head to each side in turn to knock the water out of his ears. When he’s done, he glares irritably at her. “Mirelurk,” he says. “I did shout, but apparently you had better things to do.”

“Yeah I did,” she says, thinking of the machine. “Where’s the ‘lurk now? And where’s your shirt?”

“The 'lurk,” he says, holding out his hand and pointing down into the water from which he’s just emerged, “is down there. You’re welcome to go fish it out. And forget about the shirt, it’s not important.”

He rolls his shoulder and gives that little jerk to his head that says he’s embarrassed about something. She knows she shouldn’t push, she’d hate it if he did the same to her.

But…

“Seriously,” she says. “What did happen to the shirt?”

He lets out a grunt of irritation and makes to walk past her, back toward shore. His shoulder brushes against hers as he passes.

“Ew, careful,” she exclaims, drawing back. “You’re wet.”

“Oh,” he replies. “Am I? Well I guess I’d better dry off, then.”

His eyes glint in the sun. It might be alarming if it weren’t for that tell-tale twitch in his cheek. Rare as it is for him to do it, he’s terrible at controlling a smile when it is threatening to break through his stony expression.

“Don’t do it,” she says.

“Do what?” he asks, taking a step toward her.

She frowns, but makes no attempt to move away. “I’m warning you…”

He takes another couple of steps, wraps his arms around her back, and lifts her off her feet, holding her close against bare skin that’s chilled by the cold riverwater.

“Who’s wet now?” he says, with a shark-like grin.

“Oh, please,” she says, lifting her hand to push a loose lock of hair back behind his ear. “You know you have to try harder than that.”

“Huh,” he replies. “Maybe I will.”


End file.
